25

It was well past dinnertime, and my stomach felt uneasy. Bangkok International Airport was bustling with businessmen with briefcases and tourists with cameras. I stood in one corner of the terminal, my eyes glued to the arrival board. The flight from Qingdao was delayed until almost midnight. I forced my feet to stay firmly where they were planted, even though I felt like pacing . . . even though I felt like running. I couldn’t look suspicious. I casually glanced at my watch, unfolded a newspaper, and didn’t make eye contact with my American friends standing in opposite corners of the terminal. They would provide reconnaissance and reinforcement if we were apprehended. Another friend, a former member of Congress, and I would soon make our move. None of us were action heroes. What had I gotten us into?

Outside, my friend Paul sat idling in a pick-up truck, our getaway car. He’d circled around so many times that he knew precisely how many seconds it would take for him to get from his position to the terminal gate.

If all went as planned, we could snatch my father and have him in the truck in less than a minute. If it took any longer, Chinese authorities would certainly detain us. I hadn’t slept for two days and nights after over thirty hours in the air in flights from the United States to Bangkok, with two stops along the way. I almost totally lost my voice. The chances of this scheme working, however, were admittedly slim. I’d thought it up as I sat in Philadelphia, trying to figure out a way to get my dad out of China.

“Don’t tell your mother,” I told my nephew over the phone, knowing my elder sister was already in trouble back home because of her relationship with me. “But I need your help. Tell my father he’s won a vacation, six days in the tropics, including an automatic visa, and take him to Thailand. We’ll take it from there.”

Amazingly, the plan had worked so far. My father believed he was headed out on a vacation, but I doubted the PSB agents were fooled. They certainly were on the plane as well, watching my father’s every move. They probably anticipated shenanigans and had prepared for a possible rescue attempt by a poolside, from a hotel, or near a tiki bar. I hoped they didn’t anticipate a move as soon as he got off the plane. It was very risky to snatch him from right under their noses, in front of the surveillance and security of an international airport.

But we needed the element of surprise.

If this went wrong, I would definitely be arrested and thrown into Chinese prison for the rest of my life. However, I could no longer sleep at night and it was a chance I had to take.

Finally, I looked up from my paper and saw a tourist group walking toward us, following their guide. My nephew, who was pulling a suitcase near the front of the line, had his eyes fixed on me. He motioned with his head to the back of the line, where I saw a very small, stooped, elderly man shuffling through the airport. I hadn’t seen my father in seven years, and my throat tightened. But this was no time for sentimentality. What if he didn’t willingly go with us? What if the surprise was too much for him? What if he tried to fight us off, alerting the agent who was no doubt hidden among the tourists in the group?

I looked at my accomplices, who alerted Paul. At my signal, one friend walked toward the line of tourists from the west corner of the airport and I walked from the east. We sidled up right next to my father, put our hands on his elbows, and said, “Come with us. We’re here to help.”

In one fast move, we grabbed my father, rushed him straight out of the terminal, and practically threw him into the pick-up truck that arrived at precisely the right moment. From start to finish, it took thirty seconds.

“Go, go, go!” I yelled as we got into the truck, and my friends looked back to see if there was any response. Sure enough, one of the “tourists,” wearing a camera and a floral necklace, suddenly emerged from the line, furious when he realized my father was gone. We slammed the door and drove away just as the PSB agent dropped his tourist ruse and apprehended my nephew.

“We want to get you out,” I said to my father, who was absolutely bewildered as we sped away. “These are my friends and we’re trying to help you.”

He looked at me in the dark pick-up truck, and recognition flashed across his face. “Pianyi?”

My childhood nickname. He grabbed my hand, squeezed it, and then repeated—more softy and to himself—“Pianyi.”

Our rescue could not have gone more smoothly. Within four days, the United Nations office in Bangkok recognized my father as a refugee, a process that sometimes takes months or even years. Then, in a US Department of Justice building in Bangkok, we met officials who would process immigration issues for individuals set to resettle in America after receiving UN refugee status.

Oddly, however, he refused to answer their questions. He sat in his chair, his head turned away from the official and his interpreter, defiantly. After a while, the immigration officer looked at me and said, “Your father’s not cooperating. If he doesn’t start answering our questions, we’ll cancel this meeting.”

“Dad,” I said, in Chinese, trying to hide my frustration. I’d done so much maneuvering to make this meeting happen, I couldn’t imagine canceling it. It might take months to get back on the docket. “You must respond to this man.”

“His interpreter is from Taiwan,” he said. “I can’t understand his accent.”

The officer sighed, shuffled his papers, and looked warily at the interpreter.

“Let’s try this again,” he said. “Mr. Fu, can you please tell me what happened when—”

Just then, my father twisted in his chair and exploded in anger.

“Go ahead and beat me!” he yelled. “I have nothing to say to you!”

Suddenly, it dawned on me. We were in a plain white room with metal chairs, a desk, and a man asking him detailed questions. My father believed he was back in China being interrogated by the PSB.

“Don’t worry, Dad,” I said, very gently. “This man is here to help you. We’re not in China anymore, and we’re trying to make sure you’re safe.”

My dad looked at the interviewer and narrowed his eyes suspiciously.

The Department of Justice officer pulled me out of the room for a private word.

“Listen, this is against protocol, but I’m really sorry your father couldn’t understand our interpreter and thought he was in danger. I’m going to let you interpret for him.”

“Thank you,” I said, knowing that relatives cannot normally interpret for relatives during immigration hearings. “I think it’ll help him feel more comfortable.”

“Please raise your right hand, and repeat after me,” he said, in a no-nonsense way. “I solemnly swear . . .”

“I solemnly swear,” I repeated.

“That I will translate my father’s words faithfully and accurately, to the best of my knowledge,” he finished. I repeated his sentence, and was impressed that he wanted to make sure I took my responsibility seriously.

When I came back into the room, I placed my hand on my dad’s shoulder. “Go ahead and tell this man what happened.”

Reluctantly, he did.

On February 25, 2002, police from the Wangwu Branch of the Gaomi Public Security Bureau took him in for interrogation. They threatened to imprison him unless he could persuade me to stop my “anti-China activities.” On March 4, the same officers took him back to the station, where they kicked him, cursed him, and tortured him.

“I told them my son was a good boy,” he said. “That he wouldn’t betray his motherland, but this only infuriated them. They forced my head down to my knees and made my hands stick straight up in the air and hold that position. They hit my head so much I felt dizzy for days after they released me.”

I had to leave the room. I needed air. I needed water. I was the one who should’ve endured those beatings. I was the one who’d chosen to stand up for the rights of the persecuted church. My dad was just an innocent bystander, a disabled, elderly man who still called me “boy” even though I was thirty-five.

A few months later, we were allowed to leave Thailand and travel to Philadelphia. A generous ministry paid for our entire trip, which was very expensive, and also gave me a laptop, on which I finished my studies for a language test.

Once my father arrived at our American home, he finally got to meet Daniel and Tracy. As I made the rather awkward introductions, I couldn’t help but think, This is not how it’s supposed to happen. Grandfathers should be able to hold their grandchildren, to play with them, to pass on knowledge naturally as a part of their lives from birth. They shouldn’t need to be introduced.

America baffled Dad. Our home was situated on a busy four-lane road, so the loud traffic and activity were quite different from our old peasant village. He didn’t understand why so few people walked on the sidewalk in front of our home, or why we used the garden under the windows for ornamental flowers instead of food. Since he couldn’t understand English, American television was incomprehensible. Yet he dutifully sat and watched cartoons with the children. During the days, however, Dad and I would take long walks around my home. These were wonderful times of visiting and making up for lost time. I was thankful to be living with my father for the first time since high school, even if we now had seven people living in our two bedrooms.

Our cramped living quarters would certainly make anyone agitated, especially an older man yanked from his homeland and thrown into a completely foreign environment. As time passed, my dad didn’t seem to be doing well—but it was more than agitation. He’d stop talking in the middle of a sentence without finishing his thoughts. He seemed nervous around strangers. Even though I warned him not to walk around the area by himself, he’d sneak off and get lost in north Philly. Could it be Alzheimer’s? I wondered.

In the fall, I took my father to see a neurologist.

“Your father has two tumors the size of eggs in his brain,” the doctor told me, looking at the MRI. Then he paused for me to translate the news to my father. I didn’t. I wanted to know the whole story before relaying the information to him. He’d already been through so much. I was actually relieved to hear about the tumors, which were benign. Though they needed to be surgically removed, the doctor assured me he’d be fine.

After his surgery at the University of Pennsylvania Hospital, however, he was in terrible shape. I stayed there with him around the clock, making sure he understood what was happening to him. The nurses bound his legs and arms so he wouldn’t pull out his stitches during recovery.

Even though he was expected to survive the surgery, I had the strong feeling that this was his deathbed. Suddenly, I realized I never really knew if my father was a Christian. He’d written me in a letter that he met with the elder Christian man in the village who was known as a wise fortuneteller. Did that mean Dad was a Christian as well? When I went home from college to visit him, he had his own house church. My father was so proud when I attended services, read the Bible with his house church, and did my best to explain the passages. He was proud of my biblical knowledge, even though it was as deep as a thimble. Dad’s house church grew, and one of the members became very zealous for the Lord. He rode his bicycle all over town telling people about Jesus, which got the church in trouble. The PSB said he could be a Christian, but he’d have to be more discreet. He couldn’t keep his Bible on the table, for example. He had to hide it in the closet.

Soon after, the government broke up my father’s house church and his only option was to attend a government-sanctioned church an hour from his home. Though it was very inconvenient, he made the journey every week. He even asked to be baptized there, but the church officials denied his request.

“They said I was too old.” He laughed. “But my age should’ve added a certain urgency to the procedure.”

Of course, the truth was they didn’t deem him fit for baptism because of me. But even though I knew he had participated in all this religious activity, I had never directly asked him if he was a believer.

I held his hand and tried to engage him in conversation.

“Is your suffering going to make you deny Jesus?” I asked. “Do you really believe in Him as your Savior and Lord?”

My frail dad, who probably weighed eighty pounds, looked up at me. He only had one eye that worked. His head was bandaged from the surgery, he was connected to IVs, and his arms and legs were tied to the hospital bed.

“How could I deny Jesus?” he answered joyfully. “He has done so many good things for me!”

This was the first time I had heard an assurance of his faith.

After the surgery, we knew we couldn’t properly care for my father, who needed feeding tubes and constant care. We admitted him to a nursing home, where he fell one morning as he was getting out of bed. A few weeks later, he fell again.

“I have a headache,” he told the attendants.

As I monitored his situation, I could tell he was slipping away from us. Had I taken him away from those village barefoot doctors and all the way to the best medical care in America only for him to die of complications from surgery? Did the beatings exacerbate his condition? Was the airport rescue—which at least momentarily felt like a “kidnapping” to him—too much to bear?

One Sunday morning in January, we came home from church to see a blinking light on the answering machine. The nursing home had admitted my father to the hospital. He died just a few days later.

It all felt a little unfair. We’d been separated for so many years and had risked so much to reunite. I’d hoped a new home in America might make up for lost time and restore what the Communists had taken from him. After all, my father was generous, loving, intelligent, and brave, but he was also disfigured, damaged, and limited by cruel circumstances. After he died, I was comforted by the scriptural promise that one day we’ll have a reunion that won’t require a getaway car or dodging special agents. We’ll be restored in a world that doesn’t know disability and pain. In a word, we’ll finally be home—the kind not made with hands—and I guess we’ll all have to wait until then to truly be free.