7. Remembering my Cousin Qiling — The Miss Lin that Fell from the Sky
≪ 6. My Cousin Xiao Qiai | Table of Contents | 8. A Youngster that Left Home ≫On a chilly spring afternoon around the beginning of April 1954, I was studying on the fifth floor of the Northeastern University’s Department of Architecture. Another architecture student and classmate, Ms. Peng Chinese: 彭 , called out to me at the doorway: “Liu Zhonghe, you have a guest!”
“They probably have the wrong person, I don’t have any friends or family in Shenyang Chinese: 沈阳, the capital of Liaoning province. !” I said.
“No, there’s no way, she says she’s from the same village. She’s wearing a military uniform, and she even says she’s your younger cousin!”
“Well that’s even weirder. I don’t have any cousins in the military!”
“Well then this Miss Lin Chinese: 林妹妹, pinyin: lín mèi mèi, literally “little sister Lin”. Ms. Peng perhaps chose a random name for the stranger; it doesn’t seem that 林妹妹 could mean anything else. fell from the sky,” she quipped back. “Just hurry up and go to the first floor, don’t keep her waiting!”
I rushed down to the first floor, where I really did find a girl wearing a military uniform. Her face was unfamiliar but pretty; she had a pair of dewdrop-like eyes and sprouted a pair of pigtails. She was probably around 20, though she exuded a childish energy.
“I’m sorry, I don’t think I remember you. You are…”
“I’m your younger cousin! We’ve never met before, so obviously you don’t recognise me,” she said warmly.
It seemed our conversation would go on for a while, but the building didn’t have any lounges or guest rooms and it was quite cold outside, so I ended up inviting her to the dorms instead. After talking to her for a while, I was surprised to find that she really was my cousin after all.
It turns out that her name was Huang Qiling Chinese: 黄绮玲 , and she was my cousin’s wife Huang Ruixin Chinese: 黄瑞心 ’s sister, thus she wasn’t a blood relative. My older cousin Yang Chende Chinese: 杨臣德 married Huang Ruixin in Guiyang in 1947, but ever since has not returned to Hengyang, and so I’ve never gotten an opportunity to meet them.
She’d met a familial face in a foreign place, plus she had discovered a new set of relatives, so we were all elated.
She told me that not long after graduating from nursing school, she enlisted to aid the anti-American efforts in the Korean War. She was sent to the battlefields of North Korea as a combat medic, and after the troops came home, she was sent to work at a veteran’s hospital in Shenyang. Not long before we met, her boss told her to get ready to get discharged from the military. She began arranging to return to the old family home in Hunan, where she came into contact with some of my family and friends. In a twist of fate, she found out about an older cousin attending college in Shenyang, and she brazenly came here to find her family.
I showed her around school and told her about college life, to which she expressed a bit of curiosity and a bit of envy. I showed her the essential campus buildings along with the library’s reading room, and I told her a bit about what I was studying. I also told her that I would be graduating soon, but that I didn’t know where I would go after that.
“We’ve met in a rush, and everything else is in a rush too!” She looked somewhat wistful when she said that.
“After I graduate and you find a new job, we should look for opportunities to meet again!” I said hopefully.
“I probably won’t come back to the northeast again, but you better come find me if you’re in Hunan!”
Of course, I agreed. Time flew that night, and she had to hurry back to her base. We reluctantly exchanged farewells.
Fate didn’t follow our heart’s desires, and we lost contact with each other for decades after this meeting. She had vanished without a trace.
I retired in 1996, and although I still had some research-related responsibilities here and there, I wasn’t busy at all.
That June, I attended a national conference on astrophysics in Zhengzhou Chinese: 郑州, the capital of Henan province. . On the way back home, I took an out-of-pocket detour to Guiyang Chinese: 贵阳, the capital of Guizhou province. because I wanted to complete a personal task: to visit Xiuwen Chinese: 修文, a county in Guizhou province. , where my cousin-in-law Huang Ruixin’s family lived. By then, I had heard that my cousin Yang Chende and my uncle Yang Jingshan Chinese: 杨景山 had very untimely and unfortunate deaths. My cousin-in-law was raising three kids, and her life was difficult; they had tasted the bitter and sour parts of life.
When I arrived in Xiuwen, I was devastated to hear that my cousin-in-law had already passed away over a year ago. On the bright side, I was able to meet their children, who had endured and persevered through their family’s hardships. The three had since grown up, and their hard work had brought their family to a modest and comfortable lifestyle.
On top of that, I had one more important takeaway: my first cousins once removed gave me their aunt Huang Qiling’s address in Hengyang.
In 1998, I went to Hengyang to tie up some loose ends on a research problem. It was a good opportunity to hit two birds with one stone and finally fulfill a promise kept within my heart: to find the Miss Lin that fell from the sky all those years ago.
I encountered an obstacle during my search in Hengyang, and it was that the address given to me by my relatives was their aunt’s husband’s address. Unfortunately, just a few months before then, he had passed away from cancer, and this news cast a shadow over my hopes to reunite with my family. Regardless, I followed the address to an apartment complex and found the correct door number.
“Is this the comrade Huang Qiling’s home?” I asked hesitantly.
The resident opened the front door, and seeing an unfamiliar face on an uninvited guest, she gave me a confused look.
“Who are you? Maybe you’re looking for the wrong person?”
“Oh so you are Qiling, I’m your older cousin!”
“I’m sorry, I don’t think I remember you. You are…”
This conversation was uncannily similar to the one we had over 40 years ago, except our roles had swapped.
“I even brought a letter of introduction with me.”
“A letter of introduction?” A voice charged with skepticism said, “Well, come on in and have a seat.”
As I had expected, after all these decades, even though I had found her, we were just strangers that happened to meet before. To minimise awkwardness, I had made preparations ahead of time.
After we got seated, I calmly handed her the envelope. She opened it, and the contents turned out to be a photo of me and her daughters from a year prior, and there was also a photo of her sister Huang Ruixin’s gravestone. This comprised a very intimate and personal “letter of introduction”, and it was an unexpected surprise for her. I then told her that we once met in Shenyang many decades ago.
She promptly stood up and gave me a warm handshake, and she apologised profusely: “Oh where are my manners?”
“Don’t say that, when we met way back in Shenyang, I also thought you had the wrong guy! Do you still remember that?”
“How could I forget? You even agreed to come find me in Hunan, and I was looking forward to it for years!”
I told her that after graduating, I was admitted at Qinghua Chinese: 清华, or Qinghua University. and Tongji Chinese: 同济, or Tongji University. for my Master’s. After graduating, I went to Chongqing to specialise, and I only got an opportunity to visit Hunan after twenty or thirty years. How could I find her in such a volatile sea of people?
While we caught up, she told me that her life improved a lot after she was discharged. She had already retired, and her son had started a family of his own. Sadly, just as she got ready to enjoy her golden years, an unexpected storm clouded her fate as her husband developed cancer and passed away shortly thereafter.
I could only comfort her, and I recalled how I found out about her sister’s and brother-in-law’s predicaments in Xiuwen. I said that compared to them, just being able to survive through three years of war and ten years of chaos and experiencing the fortune of the opening-up reforms was more than anyone could ask for.
She told me her son and daughter-in-law were on their way home, and she invited me to stay for dinner. I considered her offer, but sensing a heavy atmosphere, I gently thanked her and declined.
We later exchanged photos, and Qiling sent me a landscape portrait she took on a vacation this year. I’ve included it here as both a memorial of her and a gesture of well wishes.