Do Not Say We Have Nothing

Marie Jiang, also known as Jiang Li-Ling, reflects on how traumatic 1989 was for her and her mother. Her father, a former concert pianist, abandoned them and then shortly after killed himself when Marie was ten years old.

At 31, working as a mathematician at a Canadian university decades after her father committed suicide and shortly after her mother died, Marie heard Bach coming out of a shop in Vancouver’s Chinatown. The music pulled her into a memory of her father driving through the rain and “humming” when she was little (4). She remembers very little about her father, so this memory feels especially precious.

Marie reflects on how her father, whom she calls Ba, disappeared at the same time as the riots in Tiananmen Square. Her mother watched footage of the protests religiously, leaving Marie to absorb the “chaotic, frightening images” at the same time that she was trying to absorb her father’s absence (5). She tried to maintain her Chinese calligraphy lessons during this time, but she felt overwhelmed by her inability to understand so she quit. As winter came on, the police came and informed them of her father’s suicide and all semblance of normalcy in her household went kaput.

Her mother spent all her time collecting her father’s documents and letters, trying to preserve what she could of him on their kitchen table, and trying to find his adoptive father, “the Professor” (6). They received many condolences from acquaintances he had had in China but could only read some of them because most used the new version of Chinese mandated by the government to replace “traditional Chinese script” in the 1950s, which Marie and her mother had never learned (8). Marie tried to keep out of her mother’s way, though occasionally her mother would call her over to show her something interesting that she found among her father’s papers.

One night, Marie lay in bed weeping, trying to understand why her and her mother’s “love had meant so little” to her father (9). She thought about how different school life was from home life, since at school, she appeared to be “well-adjusted” but at home, she was hopelessly “lonely” (9). Her mother found her crying and tried to get her to stop by telling her “crying doesn’t help a person live” (10). They then squabbled over whether to call her Marie, Li-ling, or “Girl”—the nickname her father had used for her (10). Her mother held her and eventually told Marie that her father’s presence was in the room with them. Marie realized that this probably comforted her mother, but she was also worried her mother would go insane thinking this way.

Time passed and a long letter arrived from Shanghai. Her mother looked upset after deciphering it, so Marie looked at the sender’s name and realized it was a woman. Her mother said the woman had known her father when he was a young musician, and then after some hesitation, revealed that the woman’s name was Li-ling. She then told Marie that the woman had asked if her 19-year-old daughter, Ai-Ming, could come stay with them since she had had to leave the country due to being involved in the protests at Tiananmen Square. Her mother refused to say more beyond that Ai-Ming would soon be staying with them.

She sent Marie to bed, but Marie stayed awake listening to her mother make awkward conversation with Ai-Ming over the phone. After a while, overtaken by curiosity, Marie got out of bed to check on her mom. Seeing Marie out of bed caused her mother to “explode” (13). She yelled at Marie for never giving her any space and acting as if her mother might desert her. She told Marie she would never be as “selfish” as her father had been (13).

Marie rushed off to the bathroom where she cried and ran a bath. She thought about how fun it used to be cruise around town blaring Classical music with her dad pretending to be the conductor. The memory led her to question why her father gave up being a musician in China for shop work in Canada. Her mother knocked on the door, interrupting her reverie to ask to assure her that they would both be okay. Marie realized her mother had always been the “tough[est]” member of their family, and though she knew her mother was more responsible than her father, she could not help but admit she had loved her “father more” (15).

Marie and her mother did everything they could to make their home appear comfortable and clean for Ai-Ming’s arrival. Ai-Ming was affectionate and unassuming, making Marie want “to be near her” (18). At dinner one night, Marie asked Ai-Ming about the meaning of her name, which turned out to be “not cherishing fate […] but accepting it” (18). Ai-Ming then revealed how truly scared she was about having to always hide from the law because of her political activity in China. She insisted she that would eventually pay Marie’s mom back for taking her in and showed sincere gratitude.

Ai-Ming spent most of her time sleeping and reading. After a week, she had Marie’s mom bob her long hair. Marie was sad to see her beautiful hair shorn, but in the end, she realized the cut made Ai-Ming’s face look even prettier.

Shortly after, Marie found Ai-Ming going through her father’s papers. Ai-Ming was distraught, asking “why we keep records” if they never amount to anything, and sobbing over the loss of her father as well as Marie’s father (23). The scene disturbed Marie so much that she abandoned Ai-Ming and hid in her room.

In her room, Marie wanted to throw the picture of her father on the floor. She thought about how when he died, he had not had any belongings with him, and how he had left a note saying he loved his family but had too many “debts” and “failures” to go on (24). He used to take them to the symphony and tell her about the symphony he saw as a boy in Shanghai.

Ai-Ming knocked on her door and apologized for going through Marie’s father’s things, explaining that there was “heartbreak” between their families she had wanted to explore (25). She revealed that her father, like Marie’s father, had once been a musician but had then become a factory worker instead. Marie’s father had visited Ai-Ming’s father when she was little and that both men were completely thrilled to see each other. Marie told Ai-Ming not to talk about her father. Ai-Ming ignored Marie’s outburst and went on to talk about why she left China, saying, “I couldn’t pretend. I couldn’t go on as if nothing had changed” (26). Marie brought Chapter 17 of The Book of Records, a piece of writing Ai-Ming had found in Marie’s father’s things that was in Ai-Ming’s father’s handwriting. At first, Ai-Ming resisted Marie’s request to read it, but then Marie insisted it would help her learn Chinese. Ai-Ming then asked Marie which of her names was her “real name,” but Marie did not know (27). She asked Ai-Ming to tell her more about Big Mother Knife, Ai-Ming’s grandmother.

Ai-Ming explained that Big Mother Knife was an aggressive, imposing, and enchanting storyteller who used her songs and stories to help the Chinese through a chaotic time during which their communities “might change hands every few weeks, one day to the Communists, the next to the Nationalists, then to the Japanese” (28). She traveled and performed with her son Sparrow and her sister Swirl, eventually including Sparrow into their performances. One day, Sparrow pointed out a group of “blind musicians” passing through a town they were in (30). His mother said they were as good as dead, given the mass violence and their visual impotence (30). Towards the end of the war, he saw the group again but was so surprised by their survival that he questioned whether they ever existed at all. 

Big Mother Knife told him that music is what saved them, since no one could turn away from music. Knowing this, Sparrow did everything in his power to learn all the songs he could; he did not want to end up a “corpse” (30). After years of living in fear, Chairman Mao finally declared China to be the People’s Republic of China, setting the country free from war, which freed Big Mother Knife and her family from a life of traveling so that they could return home to Shanghai.

Back in Shanghai, Sparrow finally met his father, Ba Lute, who was a strapping “revolutionary hero,” one for whom Sparrow immediately felt “dizzying devotion” (31).

Big Mother Knife, on the other hand, was not as impressed by Ba Lute’s military bravado. Though they were given a big house to share with another military veteran and his wife, the house was constantly full of hysterical praise for Chairman Mao and Communism. Big Mother Knife felt forgotten because Ba Lute’s love for his country was so big. They fought often. Sparrow ignored it all and spent his time completely dedicated to music, hoping to earn himself a spot at the Shanghai Conservatory of Music.