“But I didn’t come to Kweilin to see how beautiful it was. The man who was my husband brought me and our two babies to Kweilin because he thought we would be safe. He was an officer with the Kuomintang, and after he put us down in a small room in a two-story house, he went off to the north-west, to Chungking.
“We knew the Japanese were winning, even when the newspaper said they were not. Every day, every hour, thousands of people poured into the city, crowding the sidewalks, looking for places to live. They came from the East, West, North, and South. They were rich and poor, Shanghainese, Cantonese, Northerners, and not just Chinese, but foreigners and missionaries of every religion. And of course, the Kuomintang and their army officers who thought they were top level to everyone else.
“We were a city of leftovers mixed together. If it hadn’t been for the Japanese, there would have been plenty of reason for fighting to break out among these different people. Can you see it? Shanghai people with north-water peasants, bankers with barbers, rickshaw pullers with Burma refugees. Everybody looked down on someone else. It didn’t matter that everybody shared the same sidewalk to spit on and suffered the same fast-moving diarrhea. We had the same stink, but everybody complained someone else smelled the worst. Me? Oh, I hated the American air force officers who said habba-habba sounds to make my face turn red. But the worst were the northern peasants who emptied their noses into their hands and pushed people around and gave everybody their dirty diseases.
但我並不是到這欣賞它的美的。當時的丈夫認為桂林是安全的，帶著我和我們的兩個嬰兒來到桂林。他是國民黨的官員，將我們安置在一棟兩層樓房裡的小房間後，他就往西北去，去重慶。
我們其實都知道日本人贏了，即便報紙寫著相反的內容，每天每個小時都有成千上萬的人湧入這個城市，塞滿人行道，尋找著落腳處。他們從四面八方來，有窮人、有富人，有上海人、廣東人、北方人，不只是中國人，還有外國人和各種宗教的傳教士都來了，當然，還有字是居於所有人之上的國民黨和軍官們。
就像各群殘黨組成的城市，若不是日本人，每天都能有無盡的理由讓這些不同群體的人互相爭戰討伐，你能理解嗎？上海人和北方來的土包子、銀行官員和理容師、人力車伕和緬甸難民，即便所有的人在同條人行道上吐痰，受苦於快速流轉的腹瀉疾病，每個人都有個瞧不起的誰。我們都一樣臭，但大家都抱怨那個誰是最不可忍受的。
我嗎？噢我不喜歡美國空軍官員總是戲弄的說著好吧好吧，讓我臉紅的，但最糟的還是北方那些俗人總愛在手裡擤鼻子，又老是用同雙手推著身邊的人散播骯髒的疾病。
