Veterans who fled mainland for Hong Kong in 1970s

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Veterans who fled mainland for Hong Kong in 1970s tell their stories

Veterans of mainland exodus in the 1970s tell how, as young men with no hope, they risked their lives to reach Hong Kong as illegal immigrants
PUBLISHED : Sunday, 06 January, 2013, 12:00am
UPDATED : Monday, 07 January, 2013, 11:31am

Verna Yu [e-mail]

Some illegal immigrants were allowed to stay if they made it to Hong Kong but others were returned, distraught, across the border. Photos: SMP, Illustration: Brian Wang

Mok was just 26 when, despondent and demoralised, he decided he had no future on the mainland and would try to flee to Hong Kong.

Because his father had been locked up for more than a decade from 1955 for being a former Kuomintang official, he faced discrimination due to his "five black categories" background.

Even with good marks at school, he could not get into senior high school or the army. And when he joined a state-run farm, hoping that hard labour would prove his loyalty to the Communist Party, he still found himself endlessly assaulted by fellow workers in mass "political struggle" sessions.

During the Cultural Revolution, Mok was given the job of raking out tonnes of cinders at a pesticide factory, where the toxic fumes often made him feel ill. As someone from a "black" family, he was forced to denounce himself in front of hundreds in often violent political struggle sessions that never seemed to end.

"In this vast land of 9.6 million square kilometres, there was no place for me," the 67-year-old said, remembering how he felt 41 years ago. "If I didn't run away, I'd be a despised 'dog' for the rest of my life."

Mok - who remains reluctant give his full name because he still has business interests and family on the mainland - spent months preparing for the big day when he would try to flee to Hong Kong.

Like many young men with the same idea, he put himself through a punishing regimen of exercise and swimming, gained knowledge of geography, map reading and weather forecasting and familiarised himself with edible plants.

His first attempt, in 1971, failed. After walking for days, he and his companions nearly drowned when they tried to swim towards Hong Kong and were caught by border guards. He was taken to various detention centres where he was beaten as a traitor and put on public parade before being sent back to his factory, where he was insulted and tortured at many more political struggle sessions.

That just made him even more determined to escape. He made it to Hong Kong the second time - in 1972. "Instead of being beaten to death, I'd rather risk dying in the sea in my quest for freedom," he said.

He was just one of hundreds of thousands of young people who risked their lives to escape from the mainland to Hong Kong in search of a better future in the 1960s and 1970s.

For more than 40 years, many of those who succeeded kept quiet about their horrendous experiences because the "illegal immigrant" label still carried a stigma. But in recent years, a few have begun to break their silence as they reach retirement age and want to tell their stories. Some of their memoirs were presented for the first time at a conference held at the Chinese University of Hong Kong last month. The conference, "Fate of a Generation, Fate of a Country", was initiated by Professor Michel Bonnin, a China expert at the Paris-based Ecole des hautes etudes en sciences sociales.

Reliable statistics about just how many mainlanders escaped to Hong Kong during that period are not available but Professor Ho Piu-yin, a historian at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, estimates they accounted for 20 per cent to 30 per cent of population growth between 1961 and 1981, when the number of people living in Hong Kong grew by about two million.

Wang Shuo, a Shenzhen official, wrote in the outspoken political journal Yanhuang Chunqiu in 2011 that an estimated 606,000 people illegally escaped to Hong Kong between 1956 and 1980 - more than half, 332,000, between 1970 and 1980.

Many were among the 20 million youngsters sent to rural areas to be "re-educated by peasants" in Mao Zedong's "up to the mountains and down to the countryside" campaign during the Cultural Revolution. With their city hukou - household registration - cancelled, they were unable to legally return to their hometowns and their thoughts turned to the capitalist haven of Hong Kong. Because of its proximity to the British colony, many in Guangdong were determined to risk their lives to escape.

Worried that they might be caught, many did not dare to carry maps but memorised their routes. They often hid in hillside bushes until night and hiked in the dark, surviving on wild plants and their own food - often balls of flour mixed with oil and sugar.

They scaled steep hills and winding paths and many were bitten by snakes or attacked by wild dogs or boars. Some slipped and fell to their death, while others got injured and gave themselves up for arrest.

Others spent months training in water. The lucky ones ended up in Hong Kong after swimming all night but the less fortunate drowned, were eaten by sharks or were caught by Hong Kong police and sent back to the mainland.

Many escapees recount stories of their companions being torn to pieces by sharks and disappearing into the sea. One of the more direct routes, Dapeng Bay in Shenzhen, was dubbed Shark Bay.

No matter which route they chose, many never made it. Their anxious families waited for months to receive good news from Hong Kong but never heard from them again.

But even though they knew of the high risks involved, many who failed the first time still tried again and again.

Cheung Yu-tack, a teenager from Guangzhou who was sent to Hainan Island in 1969 to work on a collective farm, only made it to Hong Kong on his fourth attempt in 1974.

On his first attempt in 1971, Cheung was caught by border guards and bitten by their guard dog. He was then locked up in detention centres for four months before being sent back to the Hainan farm, where he was badly beaten at political struggle sessions.

On one of his other attempts, Cheung reached Hong Kong waters but was sent back to the mainland by colonial police. Finally, he reached Hong Kong's Kat O (Crooked Island), narrowly escaping a police patrol after a gruelling overnight swim preceded by a 10-day hike. He left behind his girlfriend, who broke a leg. She was arrested but later escaped to Hong Kong, where they married.

New arrivals in Hong Kong such as Cheung did odd jobs, worked in factories and became part of the cheap labour force that made Hong Kong the world's factory in the 1970s.

Professor Ho said the colonial Hong Kong government, which until 1980 granted illegal migrants who evaded arrest on arrival the right to stay, realised that the extra labour could contribute to economic growth.

"Industries such as electronics and clock manufacturing needed intensive, semi-skilled labour, and these people, in their prime working age, contributed greatly towards our industrialisation," she said.

The wave of illegal emigration also prompted the mainland authorities to rethink their economic policy, scholars said. Late paramount leader Deng Xiaoping, who was said to blame extreme leftist policies for the mass escape, launched the "reform and opening up" policy and endorsed the development of Shenzhen - a key hub for illegal migration - into a special economic zone in the late 1970s.

The shift towards a market economy unleashed the mainland's pent-up productivity and turned it into an economic powerhouse.

Tan Jialuo, a former lecturer at Guangzhou Teachers' College who has researched the history of the Cultural Revolution, said the escapees played an important role in that process.

"Not many circumstances have changed the Communist Party's policies, but the mass escape to Hong Kong was an exception," he said. "It had an important role in the initiation of reform.

"People resorted to escaping for the sake of survival but through risking their lives they effectively helped to promote social progress."

Wong Tung-hon, who worked in Hong Kong electronics factories for decades after his escape by boat in 1970, said: "People like us used our lives to pave the way for the reform and opening-up era." He said he was proud to have participated in creating the "Hong Kong miracle".

His eyes reddened as he recalled three childhood friends who drowned in the sea while trying to swim to Hong Kong.

Surprisingly, many of the escapees, who turned their backs on communist rule in their youth, cannot see the link between authoritarian rule and the disastrous policies that led to their lost years.

One escapee said he remained opposed to the Communist Party, but said China would "descend into chaos if not ruled with a firm grip".

Tan, who was also sent to the countryside as a teenager during Mao's campaign, said the victims of repressive policies often failed to see that the dictatorial nature of the regime was to blame for their misery.

"The 'red' education has been absorbed into their blood … and they lack the ability to reflect on things independently," he said. "Reflection is a painful process of severing what has already become part of themselves."

Some even express a hint of regret when they see friends who did not escape now enjoying state pensions and social welfare benefits they don't have in Hong Kong. But others, like Wong, say they have no regrets.

"I have a vote and they don't. I know what the jasmine revolution is and they don't," he said. "I'm proud of my experience. While we fought against the dictatorship and protested with our feet, many of them were still shouting 'long live Mao'." www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/article/1120852/veterans-who-fled-mainland-hong-kong-1970s-tell-their-stories

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Forgotten stories of the great escape to Hong Kong

Vast numbers of mainlanders fled across the Shenzhen border from the 1950s to the 70s, fuelling Hong Kong’s boom years, says Chen Bingan
PUBLISHED : Sunday, 13 January, 2013, 2:56am
UPDATED : Sunday, 13 January, 2013, 3:06pm


Four "freedom swimmers" are led away by police for questioning at Tai Po Kau in May 1971. The four were part of a mass exodus over more than 20 years. Photo: Chu Ming-hoi

Chen Bingan, a writer from Shenzhen, spent more than 20 years interviewing sources and compiling information on an untold story involving millions of people, which has now been published as The Great Exodus to Hong Kong. The book, which came out in October, documents an important but forgotten slice of history, when mainlanders fled en masse between the 1950s and 70s to seek better lives in Hong Kong. This enormous movement of people was long considered too sensitive to discuss until a few years ago, when mainland authorities first began to ease up on secrecy. Chen talked with the Sunday Morning Post about why such a large number of people left the mainland, how they did it and where they are today.

Why did you name your book The Great Exodus to Hong Kong, and what does it mean?

It all happened between the '50s and '70s, when Shenzhen was a small fishing village. Every single dark night during that time there were many mainlanders leaving their homeland, diving into the deep and dirty Dapeng and Shenzhen bays, and swimming the deadly four-kilometre journey to Hong Kong. The years 1957, 1962, 1972 and 1979 marked the four major booms in illegal emigration to Hong Kong, as mainlanders had suffered greatly from the Cultural Revolution, which included vast famine.

According to my research and investigations, about two million people flooded into Hong Kong as illegal immigrants, often with great personal loss, and more people died on their way or were caught and repatriated.

Neither East Germans climbing the Berlin Wall nor the tens of thousands of North Koreans crossing the Yalu River to the Chinese city of Dandong could compare to the exodus from the mainland to Hong Kong. It’s an epic account of the fate of communists seeking a better life in a capitalist harbour, at a cost of life and blood. So I called it The Great Exodus to Hong Kong.

How many refugees escaped successfully from Shenzhen to Hong Kong, and how did they make it?

There is still a lack of official statistics, because the incidents were documented in secret archives or considered too sensitive for mainland authorities to record, let alone publish publicly.

Some mainland media outlets and scholars say that about 560,000 residents from 62 cities and counties in 12 provinces escaped to Hong Kong between 1949 and 1974, according to documents released by the Guangdong archives bureau. Some Hong Kong media put the figure at about 700,000 people. But I found, by spending two decades interviewing refugees and researching a large amount of historical material scattered throughout the country, the real figure to be two to three times higher. Most of those who escaped were young, strong peasants, leaving behind their old and under-age family members in deserted villages in Guangdong. Others included city dwellers, students, educated youths, workers, soldiers and officials. The shortest and most popular escape route was to swim from the Shekou area of Shenzhen to Yuen Long in [northwest] Hong Kong. But it was also dangerous and often fatal, through drowning or being shot dead by People’s Liberation Army soldiers. There was even a job in Shenzhen that involved helping officials collect and bury the bodies of the countless people who failed to make it.

What drove you to work on this book?

The huge number of escapees was one of the main contributors to the booming Hong Kong economy in the '70s and '80s. And they were also the key to inspiring and spurring central authorities to start the reforms and opening up in Shenzhen.

In the '60s, Hong Kong started to embrace its booming manufacturing industry, with a rising demand for migrant workers, as millions of mainlanders arrived seeking better lives. This hungry army of refugees satisfied a rising city’s appetite for cheap labour.

The runaways were all good people who had been physically and spiritually tortured. To them, Hong Kong meant freedom, food and a future. They were humble and willing to bear the burden of hard labour; they forged the backbone of the working class in Hong Kong. They were the main support behind Hong Kong becoming the Pearl of the Orient and an economic power in Asia.

Additionally, in the late '70s, some of these runaways who became Hong Kong residents turned around and became the first batch of Hong Kong businessmen to set up factories in Guangdong. Because of the funds, advanced technologies and management experience Hongkongers brought in, the central government and Deng Xiaoping decided to make Shenzhen China’s first special economic zone, and the nation’s window to the world. And the reform and opening up followed.

The people who escaped to Hong Kong should have been engraved in history, but in reality, most of them were eventually forgotten and abandoned by most of society. Now they are old, retired labourers without a reputation or decent income.

Neither the mainland nor Hong Kong governments want to propagandise or memorialise the escapees, because of the associated political taboos. By April 1, 2007, about 12,000 documents about the people had been declassified and released by the Guangdong archives bureau. But, there are still very few documentaries, movies or novels about their careers and fates.

It’s extremely unfair, and I want to record their stories. Over the past years, I have interviewed hundreds of the escapees, and I will try to interview more of them. I also call upon authorities to launch projects to record the Great Exodus to Hong Kong.

What do readers think of the book?

My book is disputed among readers. Because of a lack of support and sources, I could only investigate and research the historical facts myself. Some Hong Kong scholars and readers think the true number of the refugees from the mainland, as well as their contribution to Hong Kong’s economic development, was not as great as I described.

But I am happy to see that such an issue can be controversial among the public. It helps society still remember people who tried their best to seek better futures and freedom at the cost of their lives and blood. Some of them were buried in unknown hills in Shenzhen, while some are getting old in Hong Kong and overseas. But I believe they are all heroes and should be recorded in China’s history.

www.scmp.com/news/china/article/1126786/forgotten-stories-huge-escape-hong-kong

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Over a 30-year period about a million people made their way into Hong Kong from the Chinese mainland. They risked their life and limb to find a better life and ended up providing the city with cheap labor pool and making it prosperous. Michelle Fei reports.

On a summer night in 1958, 16-year-old Tang Chi-yan ran away home. He and a fellow countryman were bound for the border separating the mainland and Hong Kong. Climbing over the border on Ng Tung Shan Mountain, linking the south end of Shenzhen with the Hong Kong border village of Sheung Shui, was one of the toughest things they'd ever done.

As far as Tang was concerned, it was his only hope to create a future. His father belonged to the hated "landlord class", and so Tang, having completed middle school, was banned from further education. Tang expected to be mired by his "special identity" in his hometown of Huiyang, Guangdong province, for the rest of his life.

"Let's go to Hong Kong!" One of Tang's friends suggested. Anyone who foreswore the socialist motherland and sought shelter in a capitalist colony was considered a "traitor" by the government of the day.

Once Tang and his friends were on there was no turning back. Tang and his friends hoped to sneak across the border to start a new life in Hong Kong. Failure meant imprisonment or death - being caught by the border police, falling off a cliff coming over the mountains.

"My heart was quaking when I heard the barking of police dogs approaching," said Tang.

"I saw the iron net (border gate) right in front of me and one of my friends shouted 'jump!', and then I jumped," Tang added, recalling how he and his companies made it through the border safely that night.

Tang did not realize that he was among the pioneers of what was to become a large historic group of escapees.

During the 1950s to 1980s, it was estimated that approximately one million mainland residents escaped to Hong Kong via the Shenzhen border. The exodus was believed the largest one ever recorded during the Cold War period, in terms of both numbers and duration, according to Chen Bing'an, a mainland journalist who completed a book on the escapees in October 2010, titled The Grand Exodus, or Da Tao Gang in pinyin.

"People know only that the city (Shenzhen) developed after the famous opening-up policy. However, there are few people who know that it was the tears and blood of the escapees that inspired the introduction of the opening-up policy," said Chen.

"By revealing the history of the exodus, I want to remind people, especially the young ones, where the city's roots lie," noted Chen.

Last year also marked the 30th anniversary of Shenzhen's becoming China's first economic reform zone. Chen's book was considered something of a "precious gift" to the city.

Chen said he believed that the history of the exodus was equally important for Hong Kong as for these illegal immigrant who provided cheap labor to fuel Hong Kong's rapid economic development, and who made grand contribution to the city's "economic miracle" that happened during the 1960s and 1970s.

"Forget the economic indices, policies, the prosperity of Hong Kong was built by tears and blood of mainland refugees!" said Ye Xiaoming, who fled to Hong Kong in the 1970s and was interviewed by Chen.

Till the end of the 20th century, it was said that among the 100 richest people of Hong Kong, more than 40 of them fled to Hong Kong during the 1960s and 1970s. These included the founder of Goldlion Holdings Ltd Tsang Hin-chi, founder of Giordano International Limited and Next Media Limited Lai Chee-ying, and "Futures Godfather" Liu Mengxiong, who is now a Hong Kong member of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference National Committee.

The history of the exodus remained unknown among most Chinese people for about half-century.

Documentaries concerning the exodus were considered "sensitive" and "forbidden" till the central government decided to change its policy in 2007. Chen's book was the first one to reveal stories of people once involved in the grand exodus.

It took him 22 years to explore the history as few people were prepared to recount their former sadness and pain. Many lost their families during the risky journey, some right before their eyes.

The Shenzhen River serves as the natural border between Hong Kong and Chinese mainland. The narrowest part of river is only two-meters wide. One can across it in a single bound. One of the major routes for the exodus was to climb over the eastern border on Ng Tung Shan Mountain, where the Shenzhen River starts, and sneak into Hong Kong via the Sha Tau Kok area.

Many others stowed away or swam across the Shenzhen River via western She Kou or Shenzhen Bay area, reaching Hong Kong's Yuen Long District.

Tens of thousands of mainland refugees flocked to the border to seek a better life in the colony. However, many of them were not as lucky as Tang.

Many were swallowed up in the ocean; some were shot dead by mainland border police; others were just too weak to make to the end, according to Chen.

"I didn't realize how lucky I was until I heard from my younger brother later that he was caught near the border twice and was bitten by police dogs," said Tang, adding that many of his fellow townsmen tried to copy their experience but failed to make that far.

"I still remember that many dead bodies of mainland refugees could be seen on the seashore of northern Hong Kong everyday during those days. Some were found with dog bites, some even had bullet holes," said Tang's wife, Chow Kee-lin, a local-born Hong Kong resident.

An industry of "body draggers" once flourished during the area in Shenzhen. Workers would drift in the river, retrieve bodies and bury them. The draggers were paid by the government. There were so many corpses that many of the draggers prospered, according to Chen.

Besides "body draggers", there was the illegal trade of "drifter host" that boomed across the border. Escapees were "hosted" - pretty much the same as being kidnapped-- at shattered metal sheds located under Ng Tong Shan Mountain, waiting for their Hong Kong relatives or acquaintances to pick them up, after a sum of money was paid to the "host", according to Tang.

"I was later kicked out of the shelter when they found out that no one's going to pick me up," said Tang.

Having no contact with his relatives in the city, Tang could do nothing but to drift onto the street.

"Most Hong Kong people were willing to help these refugees, giving them toast, bread and sugar," recalled Tang's wife.

"We not only helped strangers we came across on the street, but also went to Wah Shan to pick them up as many of them were actually our relatives," said Tang's wife.

Wah Shan Mountain, at the border town of Sheung Shui, was a gathering point for mainland refugees at that time. They had a lot of sympathy among Hong Kong people.

The headline for Sing Tao Daily published on May 17, 1962 read "historic high numbers of refugees recorded at the border".

The article stated that over 3,000 mainland refugees were reported being arrested at the border in one day, with the total number of refugees arrested in first half of May reaching 25,000.

In the face of those high numbers, over 2,000 Hong Kong residents were reported rushing to the mountain with food and water to help the refugees.

When hundreds of police cars carrying nearly 30,000 refugees moved slowly towards the border to return them to the mainland, an astonishing thing happened.

Thousands of Hong Kong residents surrounded the police cars. They stood waving goodbye to family members in the police cars. Then, one Hong Kong resident lay down on the road to stop the cars and shouted "run!" Many other residents joined him. Thousands of refugees then jumped off the vehicles and ran, assisted by local residents' help, according to Hong Kong media reports.

"They were forced to flee to Hong Kong by hunger and poverty, even at the price of their lives," said Chen.

He reckoned that poverty was the most direct cause of the grand exodus. However, "inappropriate policies" was the true reason behind them, said Chen.

On Chen's notebook, a red curve on a chart marked the numbers of escapees during the 30 years from the mainland. The first exodus can be traced back to 1955. The escapees flowed to the boundary at Shenzhen from 12 provinces, including Guangdong, Hunan, and Hubei.

Four peaks were recorded in 1957, 1962, 1972 and 1979, involving some 560,000 people, according to Chen's research.

"The curve of the exodus intrinsically was linked with political moves. The chart was a clear reflection of the nation's policy and economic development," said Chen.

Chen cited three major political moves during the 1950s through to the 1980s: the Great Leap Forward (1958); the Three Years of Famine (1959-1961), which Chen believed to be a consequence of the Great Leap Forward campaign but was officially declared to be a natural disaster; then the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976).

"These political moves gave the young regime a hard time, impoverished the country, and more importantly, left millions of people of the grassroots with their lives hanging in the air," said Chen.

"The majority of the exodus was farmer. They didn't know much about politics or democracy; they only cared about where they could find food, where they could keep their heads above ground," said Chen.

"Socialism or capitalism? People voted with their feet, not their hands," said Chen.

Today, a half-century after the grand exodus, villagers at Hong Kong's Wah Shan village are still reluctant to recall the history.

"Why you ask about the history? What do you want?" a villager who had lived in Wah Shan for over 40 years questioned first instead of giving direct answers. In his 80s, the villager remains fully alert about the topic.

"There used to be lots of mainland people lingering on the mountain. They climbed over the border and waited for their relatives," recalled the elderly villager.

"I had a friend that came to Hong Kong in this way," he said.

The villager, born on the mainland and came to Hong Kong in the 1970s, claimed himself as a legal immigrant, not like these refugees.

Since publication of the book, Chen said he has received emails from several compatriots who once joined the exodus to Hong Kong and now have moved aboard. They are considering setting up a group to record their common history.


www.chinadaily.com.cn/hkedition/2011-04/20/content_12358785.htm