尋找小紅帽 

我在1937年日本轟炸中出生在江蘇常州,母親生我時是難產.

那時,有地位的人家不願意家裏的孕婦到醫院裏生孩子,但是我母親失血過多,已呈半昏迷狀態,所以就被送到一家教會醫院.

醫院的醫生都已疏散,只有一位美國傳教士醫生還留在醫院裏.

他跟我外婆說要用雙重箝子把我夾出來,母親和我都有生命危險, 再不然就把我切成幾塊,那樣可以保我母親生命.

外婆當然以我母親為重,但是她說我父親已經隨政府去了後方,隨時都有死的可能.為了我們家留一個後代,假如是我個男孩,就一定要把我生下來. 我已經有了一個四歲的姐姐.

傳教醫生知道我是個女孩,但他不能殺生,所以就說謊說我是一個男孩,我被雙重箝子拖了出來.

我出生不到兩個月,母親就帶著姐姐和我逃難到鹽城鄉下沼澤地區,那邊到處都是土匪,聽見城裏人來避難,必定有錢,就來打劫,母親帶著我們兩三天就要坐小船逃土匪.

有一次逃到我堂姐家,十一歲的堂姐帶著我姐姐,和抱著幾個月大的我,到沼澤地去玩,

他們兩個去抓蜻蜓或者靑蛙去了,留下我一個人在草地上,一隻在蘆葦裏的丹頂鶴,看見我,就到岸上來看我. 我看到她的鐵灰色的腳很高,很強壯,在我前面好一陣子. 然後,我看見她的眼睛,很大很亮,頭上有一頂小紅帽.

後來,我們逃到大後方重慶,與爸爸重逢,母親在一家小學教美術,一天我在她教室外面等她帶我回家,她班上那天一個特別項目,為慶祝母親節之流的.

我畫了一張大鳥,一對大翅膀,尖尖上是黑色,頭頂小紅帽,我畫得非常得意,拿給母親看,母親看了很不高興,馬上轉過身去看別的學生的畫.我非常傷心.

回到家裏,我把那張畫扔在床底下.有一天我堂姐把我畫的大鳥掃了出來,她大叫說,「就是那隻鳥呀,她每天都躲在蘆葦裏偷看我們.」

因為我母親很不喜歡我畫的那隻鳥,所以我就把她一直壓在我的下意識裏,但是我沒法壓制我的感覺,在我的夢中,她也出現過. 我跟在她的後面,爬了很久,她的腳指中間沒有蹼.

抗戰勝利後,不幸內戰又開始, 我家去了台灣,我很幸運,讀了北一女,又上了台灣大學,

大學畢業後,我來了美國,唸了社會學碩士,還沒唸完.就找到兩個研究工作,我在紐約哥倫比亞大學做研究工作多年,後來結婚,生了兩個女兒,現在她們都已成人.

我有一個朋友,在密西根,她很愛丹頂鶴,曾寄了一張丹頂鶴的照片給我,當時我看了那張照片,心裏有很奇怪的感覺.

後來我發現中國扎龍濕地保護區有一個護送丹頂鶴到南方過冬的項目,我曾經有意跟我的美國朋友一起去護送丹頂鶴到南方. 但是我不知那南方就是我小時候逃難的地方.

我決定到扎龍去尋找我的鶴. 我聯絡到在哈爾濱的文友常新港,李萍,他們介紹王利群,楊光給我, 王利群天才地想到把我丹頂鶴這個故事拍成一個紀錄片.

從哈爾濱一下飛機,王利群與他夫人楊光已在機場等我,他們熱烈的歡迎使我有點受寵若驚,我們馬上就坐王利群的車往扎龍開去,路上還和他的朋友們會合.他們一起熱心地帶我去看鶴.

高速公路與齊齊哈爾的城市風景漸漸變成空曠的原野,我知道我馬上就真的要看到丹頂鶴了,我也知道我看到的鶴也許不會是我七十多年前我看到的那隻.

進了濕地,天是那樣地藍,濕地是那樣的遼闊,然後我看到了一隻丹頂鶴.她遠遠地朝我走來,我好像認識她,她好像也認識我.我終於了解,我能看到她不是偶合.

遠處一個巨蛋形將要完工的博物館和它附近的寬廣濕地,讓我想起好萊塢長年叫座的 「星際大戰」中的風景. 我覺得丹頂鶴好像是從另一個星球被送來的嬌客,它們是那樣的稀有,那樣的美麗,那樣地被濕地工作人員保護著. 而我今天能再見到它,是老早的安排.世上的事,環環相接,我,和所有幫我來見鶴的朋友們,我們都是相連的.

在宇宙相對的時間裏,七十年不過只是一霎那,今天看到了丹頂鶴,我好像又回到了家.

我看到一隻高飛的鶴,飛向遠處,像它一樣,我也要飛回遠方異國洛杉磯的家,但我可以再飛回來扎龍--丹頂鶴的家,我的家.

Looking for the Little Red Bonnet   

In 1937 At the beginning of the Second World War, I was born amid the Japanese bombing. It was a difficult birth.

At the time, a respectable Chinese family did not want its pregnant woman to deliver in a hospitable.

My mom, pregnant with me, had lost too much blood and was near death, so she was brought to a missionary hospital.

All the doctors had evacuated except one American missionary doctor who chose to stay.

He told my grandmother I had to be pulled out by double forceps, which could be death for both my mother and me. Or I could be cut up to pieces and taken out. That way my mother could be saved.

My grandfather couldn't come back from next province and my grandmother had to make the decision. My grandmother's priority was of course to save my mother's life. I already had a four year old sister. My grandmother thought my father had gone with the government. He could be killed during the journey. My grandmother said she owed it to my family to have the baby delivered if it was a boy.

The missionary doctor knew I was a girl but he couldn't kill a life, so he lied that I was a boy. Someone had to sign the paper for the surgery. A woman's signature didn't count at the time. The only male in our family present was my fourteen year old uncle,

so he signed the papers and I was brought out by double forceps.

When I was two months old, my mother took my sister and me to run away from the Japanese to the wetland in Jiangsu.

The rushes were high and thick. Small villages were scattered and Japanese did not pay much attention to the area.

But the local bandits thought refugees from cities had money and they killed to get the money.

My mother had to take my sister and me and ran away in a small boat every few days in the bayous before the bandits could find out our whereabouts.

If we were caught, the bandits would torture my mother for money. My mother didn't have much money but the bandits would not have believed it.

One time we hid in our cousins' house. My eleven-year-old cousin took my four-year-old sister and the infant me to the wetland. The high rushes were a haven to avoid the Japanese planes or the bandits.

One day my cousin and my sister must have gone to look for dragonflies or frogs near by and left me alone on the grass bank. A red-crowned crane in the rushes saw me and must have come ashore to take a look at me.

I remembered her coal-grey legs, very strong, and toes with no webs between them.

I remembered her eyes, very big and clear looking at me. I must have crawled after her for a long time because the legs appeared in front of me for a very long time. I saw she had a little red bonnet on her head.

We were able to run away from the Japanese and came to Chongqing, the war capital, in southwest China and reunited with my father.

My mother taught art in a primary school. One day I waited outside her classroom for her to take me home. They had an art project drawing something for Mother's Day or some special occasion.

I drew a big bird with a long neck and huge wings with black tips and a red bonnet on its head.

When I showed my mother the drawing, she was very annoyed and dismissed me and looked at other students' artwork.

My hurt feeling was so strong that I remembered to this day.

When I took the picture home, I threw it under the bed. My cousin, who came with us to southwest China, swept my picture from under the bed and exclaimed, "This was the bird with a red bonnet. It watched us from the rushes everyday."

Because my mother disliked the picture so much, I repressed the crane deep under my sub-consciousness. But I couldn't repress the feelings and I had dreams about the bird with a red bonnet.

Despite of the terrible times of Civil War and upheavals in China later, I was lucky that my family went to Taiwan.

I went to the best First Girls Middle School and the best university, National Taiwan University in Taipei. Then I came to America. I had my master degree in sociology in New York and I had two job offers even before I graduated. It was      good times in the States. I married and had two daughters. They are now grown up.

I had a friend from Michigan. She loved red-crowned cranes and sent me a picture of it. I had a strange feeling when I saw the picture. I found out a program in Zhalong, China to accompany the baby cranes to someplace in Jiangsu for wintering.

I had wanted to go with my friend to volunteer for the job escorting the cranes to the south. But I didn't know the place in Jiangsu was the wetland that my family escaped to during the War.

When I first entered the wetland in Zhalong, the sky was so blue, the wetland so immense. Then I saw a real red-crowned crane. She walked toward me. I seemed to recognize her and she seemed to recognize me. All of a sudden, I realized that it wasn't a coincidence that I saw her.

On the horizon, there was a round structure which would be the future museum. It reminded of the scenery in Hollywood's blockbuster  "Star Wars." I thought of the red-crowned crane, so rare, so beautiful, so protected by the devoted workers in the wetland. Might they have been transported here from another galaxy. 

And in the relative period of time in the universe, seventy years was but a second. Everything happened in my life, chapter by chapter, had led me to this moment, the reunion with my crane.

I saw a crane fly high, flying far away. Like her, I would fly back to the far away home in Los Angeles but I can always fly back to Zhalong in China, to my home here, home of the red-crowned crane.