SYDNEY—Joseph Mack grew up in China. He does not see anything to celebrate in the 60 th anniversary of Chinese Communist Party Rule and tells his story to The Epoch Times.
One of Joseph Mack’s earliest memories is the mass shootings of people deemed “counter-revolutionaries” by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).
At his rural town home near the southern city of Guangzhou where he lived with his parents and four brothers and sisters, Mr Mack witnessed executions that were part of what is known as the “Suppression of the counter-revolutionaries”, which began in 1950 and continued for three years.
“Across the bridge where we lived, there was a field where almost every week there were people being executed. Those people were made to parade along the street before being taken to execution. We were told that they were the enemies of the people,” recalled Mr Mack.
“Those who were being executed were mainly members or those who had worked for the Kuomintang, the Nationalist Party.
“Our parents would not allow us to get out of the house when something like that happened, but my elder brother always found a way to sneak out with us. I was about five, just old enough to remember the things I would now like to forget,” Mr Mack said.
During this period the communists also instigated their land reform of which a key component was the elimination of the landlord class. Twenty million rural inhabitants were labeled landlords, rich peasants, reactionaries or bad elements. One of Mr Mack’s aunts was deemed as such.
“[She] was beaten so badly that she could not walk with a straight back again. Being a landlord [she owned only one house larger than the others], she was made to kneel on broken glass and confess to crimes they had made up for her,” he said
The final straw for Mr Mack’s family was the education forced upon their children.
“Mother told us later that children were taught to chant ‘Bu ai papa, bu ai mama, zhi ai guojia’ –Don’t love your father, don’t love your mother, love only your country,” said Mr Mack.
When his older sister threatened to report his mother to the authorities for scolding her, his parents decided to leave China, with Mr Mack’s father going in advance to find work abroad.
“Applying to get out of the country to join father was not plain sailing. It took months to process the application. Then, they came and searched our house and took away everything considered suspicious.
“Among the things taken and never returned was a wedding photograph. It was taken with father in a studio, dressed in Western-style wedding gowns.
Because of the photo, Mr Mack’s mother was put in detention and interrogated daily for over a month.
“On the day mother was given the permit to leave, she said: ‘As long as the communists remain in control, I will not step on Chinese soil again.’”
With 30 pieces of baggage, his mother took their five children from Guangzhou to Macau in a boat to meet her husband. “We stayed in Macau for a year and in January 1952, we left for Hong Kong,” said Mr Mack.
In 1975 Mr Mack settled permanently in Australia and has since worked as an electrical engineer for the same Sydney firm. In 1977 his mother joined him.
“Mother was a Catholic and she liked to be called Maria, but her close relatives and friends liked to call her by her maiden name, Li-rong,” said Mr Mack. She passed away in 2004. She had never been back to China.
