What it Was Like to Move to China in 1957

Jane Su, a Wisconsin-native, made the move to China long before it was cool.

Su first came to Beijing in 1957, after marrying a Chinese heart surgeon in the United States, and excluding years spent in Xi’an and Chongqing, she’s lived here ever since.

Just arrived in Beijing, 1957

“We had to come separately,” Su says about the move. While her husband took the boat to London, Su flew from Montreal, Canada to meet him. They originally planned to sail from there, but Su was five months pregnant at the time and the start of the Suez Canal War led to its closing. The ship would have to go round the Horn of Africa, which would take weeks. In the end, they bought a ticket “straight” to Beijing. “First we went from London to Paris, just because we had never been there before, then to Prague, then Moscow, and finally to Beijing.”

Su adjusted to life in China without any major difficulties. “Living here is just what you make of it, I think. Slowly you get used to everything,” she says.

Su as a new mother in 1957

“I’ll tell you a story. I was here for about six months, and I was desperate to go out and live a normal life, although I didn’t speak much Chinese. I didn’t have a bicycle, so I borrowed one to go to the market because I wanted to cook some chicken. I didn’t really realize at that time that if you wanted a chicken, it had to be a live chicken. So the man gave me a chicken, tied it by its legs, which I had to hang by the string off the handlebars of the bicycle. I was so scared, all the way home the chicken was squawking. I didn’t want to ride because I was worried the chicken would peck me, so I had to push the bike the entire way home.”

Once in Beijing, Su found life was never boring, whether it involved carting live chickens around on bicycles or being a part of the shifting domestic politics. “Especially in the early days, life was so interesting. First came the Great Leap Forward, and then later on the other political movements like the Cultural Revolution or life under the Gang of Four. Every day you would go to work to hear all the latest gossip and find out the latest news.”

Su at the Temple of Heaven with her children

Through this ever-changing political environment, attitudes towards foreigners changed, although Su never found that people were downright rude and was never concerned for her personal safety.

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This article first appeared in the Jan/Feb 2017 issue of the Beijinger, which you can read via Issuu.com, via PDF, or in hard copy at all of your favorite venues across town.

Click the cover to read the January/February 2017 edition of the Beijinger

Photos: Uni You, courtesy of Jane Su