There are few traces to remind visitors to tranquil Tongbo Village on China's southeast coast of its old nickname of "widow village."
Children and dogs play on the narrow village path, shadowed by neat houses on two sides. The path leads to the beach along the Taiwan Straits, a troubled water for several decades.
The separation of the mainland and Taiwan in 1949 left a bitter legacy in this village of 200 families.
FAMILIES PARTED
Late on May 12, 1950, a Kuomintang army troop, defeated in the four-year civil war and planning to flee to Taiwan, conscripted all males aged between 17 and 55 in the village.
At that moment, the People's Liberation Army had not reached the small fishing village in southeastern Fujian Province, even though the People's Republic of China had been founded in Beijing seven months earlier.
Among the 147 men taken from Tongbo to Taiwan, 91 were married. They didn't see their wives again for at least 38 years.
"All of these wives did not marry again. They devoted themselves to their children or in-laws," said Huang Zhenguo, director of the Widow Village Museum, which lies on a highway that connects the village to the outside world.
"This was a very traditional village. These women took care of the families and never gave up, even though they knew their husbands might not come back."
Not all lived long enough to see personal visits resume across the Straits in 1987. "These couples never reunited. Either the husband or wife died," Huang said.
FEW HAPPY ENDINGS
Not all those who survived found a happy ending: many of the husbands had started over in Taiwan. They came home with the women they had married there, and the children of those new marriages. After a short stay in Tongbo, they had to return Taiwan.
"Those who remained single and returned to live with their mainland wives were very few. Only 19 husbands came back to settle here," Huang said.
Chen Qiaoyun, 89, was one of the lucky wives. In 1988, her husband returned home, at the age of 74.
"I hardly recognized him. He was 36 when he left. Our son was only five months old then," recalled the diminutive old lady, who only speaks the Minnan dialect. Her aged hands showed traces of a tough life and hard work.
She repeatedly mentioned the difficult early years.
"We were very poor at that time. No man in the family, this was hard for me. I even could not get enough food for my son," she said.
It wasn't until her husband came back that they began to rebuild their home, transforming it from a shabby cottage into a two-story concrete house.
The eight-room house is still home to Chen's large extended family: her daughter-in-law, two grandsons, their wives and three grandchildren. But her husband did not enjoy it for long.
"He only lived here for two years before he died," Chen said. The old man's picture hangs high on the living room wall, next to a photo of his son who passed away in 2001.
Among the returning husbands, only three are still alive.
"Sometimes I spot one of the old couples in the village. They go out for a walk, hand-in-hand. It is moving, but it also reminds me that such happiness will not last long," said Huang, also living in the village.
SHADOWS PASS, MEMORIES PERSIST
"This is not 'widow village' any more. The old ladies departed this life every year," said Huang. "Only 18 of them are alive now."
The younger generation seldom mentions this chapter in the village's history.
"Villagers do not like the nickname. It represents a sad era and they want to forget it," Huang said.
But families of these "widows" donated letters, family pictures and souvenirs to the museum that opened 10 years ago.
On display are a stone mill, a pair of old shoes, a pen and many other ordinary articles that bear the sadness, desperation and desires of these women.
Once in a while, a few tourists stop by on their way to the picturesque beach near the village.
Inside the museum hangs a mirror, broken and repaired.
"This is the symbol of 'widow village'," Huang said. "This tragedy was not unique to Tongbo. It happened at many places in the mainland. This is just a typical example."
But in the past two decades, the village has also benefited from close family connections with Taiwan.
With money sent across the Straits by relatives, villagers built homes and started businesses, years before the rest of China began to boom.
"The first TV set in the village was brought by relatives from Taiwan," Huang recalled. "But things have changed. Our lives have improved a lot and we don't really need their help. We just hope they can visit the hometown more often and we can see each other more often."
RETIRED GHOST
Huang had special connections with these widows before he became the Widow Village Museum director.
"Many of these women were illiterate. I wrote letters for them," he said. He was a ghostwriter for more than 30 years, starting as a teenager.
Before 1987, postal services were prohibited across the Straits. Letters from the mainland had to be sent to relatives in foreign countries and then mailed to Taiwan.
"After 1987, postal service resumed. I could write the address in Taiwan openly on the envelope. But letters were transferred via Hong Kong. It would take at least 11 days," he said.
Dec. 15, 2008 was a big day for him. "After so many years of effort, direct postal service was finally realized," he said.
Although letters now move faster, hardly anyone needs him to ghostwrite anymore. Telephone and Internet services connect people on both sides.
"People said I 'retired' as a ghostwriter. But I am happy to see that communications became so easy," he said.
The latest letter he wrote was to help a son persuade his father in Taiwan to move back to Tongbo village.
"The father returned in late March this year," Huang said.
These old men often take a stroll to a small plaza in the village and sit under an old Chinese banyan, where their wives used to watch the sea and expect to see them come back.
Source:Xinhua
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