From Chongqing to Hakone
Bing Xin

It was already dark when I arrived in Tokyo desolate under the street lamps. Not a soul in sight. It was entirely different from Shanghai, which was noisy and choked with vehicles.

However, I presumed the city would never be so still in the daytime. On the third day after my arrival, a friend of mine showed me around Hakone. On the way from Tokyo to Yohohama, what struck me most were the endless sights of debris, shabbily-dressed women and haggard crowds. But the roads were level and clean. The nearer we got to Hakone, the more luxuriant the forests. The red autumn leaves in the evening glow plus the zigzag paths added greatly to the enchanting beauty of the landscape. Around a corner of the mountain path, we suddenly came in sight of the indescribable beauty of snow-capped Mount Fuji wrapped in purplish clouds.

Hotels of Hakone compare well with first-class hotels of Western countries. Our window opened on a scene rich in Oriental flavor. Mountain ridges, eaves, stone pagodas, small bridges, etc. all were so quiet, elegant and pleasing.

That night I just couldn’t fall asleep. I didn’t know why I had so many thoughts surging in my mind.
The next day got out of before daybreak. As I lifted the window curtain, green pines were dimly visible through a thick mist enveloping the mountains. Suddenly I was on the verge of exclaiming, “Ah, my Gele Mountain, the fantastic Gele Mountain of Chongqing!”

Now I feel obliged to say a few words about the unforgettable Gele Mountain. It is much smaller than Hakone with not so many red autumn leaves. Its slopes are covered with dense pine forests. Red azaleas are in full bloom all over the place in spring.

And cuckoos are heard crying plaintively on spring evenings. It is said that azaleas on the mountain have been dyed red with the blood spit up by cuckoos.

Bombing raids usually happened in fair weather.

At the hideous, penetrating sound of the air-raid siren, people would dash for dear life into dark and cold air-raid dugouts, carrying food, drinking water, candles, blankets and their kids.

Fear was written large on the ashen faces of trembling women and children.

While Japanese aircraft were sweeping past overhead amidst terrible bomb blasts and a violent gust of wind, we could do nothing but sigh a deep sigh. Then we somehow managed to climb up to the mountaintop where we stood watching the city of Chongqing shrouded in billowing gray smoke and worrying about the safety of our dear ones.

Bombing raids usually took place on a beautiful starry night. So we chose to stay outside the air-aid shelter.

We sat at the narrow entrance of the tunnel holding our sleeping babies in our laps.

Then, when the distant fires, flickering like fireflies, gradually died out, the streets became pitch dark and silence reigned everywhere except for the faint barking of far-off dogs.

The Jialing River looked like a silvery white ribbon.

Aircraft were hardly visible in the pale moonlight. Only distant explosions were heard now and then. Suddenly several searchlights swept across the dark sky.

“We got them! We got them!” Nine, six, three Japanese aircraft tottered like white moths and plunged headlong into the city, and then followed the earth-shaking explosions and leaping flames.

Days and nights went on like this for five years. I spent five years in the Gele Mountain witnessing every bombing holocaust.

It was a horrible and abominable war.

At the end of the war, we understood what was to blame. In spite of the ravages of war we had gone through, we felt sympathy and love for the common people. During the last two years of my stay in the Gele Mountain, it gave me a feeling of unutterable pain to learn of the bombing raids on Tokyo. I visualized the tragic picture of countless Tokyo young women trying desperately at the air alarm to squeeze into air-raid shelters with little babies on their backs and meanwhile worrying about husbands and relatives.

Now Tokyo reminds me of Chongqing. Here in Hakone, I feel as if I were in the Gele Mountain. We have learned a valuable lesson from sufferings. No prosperity or happiness will come of acts of aggression. Without mutual sympathy and love, there would be no co-existence and co-prosperity at all.

Never again will the Gele Mountain or Hakone be a place for sheltering evacuees. They should be a place for sightseers to feast their eyes on the beautiful scenery at the mountaintop. Never again will gloomy air-raid dugouts tarnish a place of natural beauty.