Page 68 - moondani kyema

ndani kyema, My Story - Ray Moore 68

I listened to the monotonous clickety clack of the train wheels as they travelled along
the twin rails of steel southward from Jiujiang towards Hong Kong. Occasionally,
when the wind was blowing the wrong way, specks of black soot flew through the
window, some hitting my skin with surprising force. From time to time the haunting
sound of the train whistle could be heard up front as we approached a crossing or to
warn some villagers who were straying too close to the line. I had been nibbling on a
piece of arrow root which I had been given by a friendly Chinese fellow traveller. My
thoughts turned to what this trip really meant.

We were being expelled
from China by the newly
installed Communist
regime and I was on my
way to Australia. I looked
out the window at the
farmers working in the rice
paddies, and the small
villages with their rural
family life continuing as
normal in spite of the
historical upheaval that
had occurred in their
country. Were those
people now free? What

did they feel about the communist “liberation”?

I loved China. This was my home. I loved these people who shared my home. The

beautiful, lilting tones of the Mandarin dialect infiltrated gently into my subconscious.

But I had been told by my teachers that these communist people were evil, and, as a

15 year old in a boarding school for missionaries' children, I had no other source of
information. So we were on our way to Australia which I understood to be my “home
country” where I would be free, but in my heart it was not so.