Adventures of Eddie Fung.
In the past, the ones who went to war often came back with different perceptions of how the war was and how it affected life in general. This is evident between Eddie Fung who participated in world war II as a Prisoner Of War and George Orwell. The two were in different places, George Orwell was in Spain while Eddie Fung was in Burma. Orwell served as a POUM (Partido Obrero de Unificación Marxista) with the Spain party’s militia and his witness of the repression movement led to his anti-authoritarian ideas he developed later on in life (Orwell, 2016). His memoir Homage to Catalonia expresses the view he had that was pro-revolutionary and his ignorance of what the war was, was not what happened on the ground. He did not fight as he expected and even expressed that the time in Spain was the most futile in his whole life, he spent most of his time not fighting but engaging in political discussions that never ended (Orwell, 1943). Probably why his views differed from that of Eddie Fung.
Eddie Fung was a Chinese -American soldier who got captured by the Japanese during WWII and became a prisoner of war (POW). He was the only Chinese soldier captured and put in the camp. He was sent by the Japanese to Burma to do the impossible which was to build a railroad that went through 262 miles of a tropical jungle. As prisoners, they were working under brutal labour conditions but managed to complete the railroad which was at the expense of 70,000 Asian lives and 12,500 POW.
Indeed Eddie Fung’s life was nothing but an adventure, he went from being a Chinese living America, to running away and living as a cowboy in Texas, he then became an American soldier who got captured by the Japanese. The most interesting part of his life was when he became a POW survivor. He lived to tell his story after enduring 42 months of torture and humiliation whereas prisoners they worked with no days off even when they were sick (Fung, 2007,p 139). When he was captured he was worried about how he would be treated especially after he heard about how the Japanese massacred China’s Military in 1937. His treatment during his imprisonment was inconsistent in that sometimes he was treated like an experiment, sometimes like he was nothing and just beat him without warning and other times they treated him like any other American.
He had to find ways to survive and would steal and trade whatever he got his hands on, even though the kitchen was designed to make it impossible to steal he calculated carefully the activities in the kitchen till he came up with a plan. He untied the vines that held the bamboo walls in the kitchen and sneak in, he would then steal sacks of sugar that outweighed him just so that he could trade them. He also was able to get away with 24 bottles of quinine by repackaging them and placing them at the bottom of the stack. His survival was mainly because of how he perceived life due to his family and upbringing and the experiences he had had as a cowboy in Texas. He was determined to get into the army and enrolled even though he was underweight and the sergeant told him to go eat many bananas and come back for weighing (Fung,2007,p 68). Fung’s whole life had been nothing but an adventure and even though some parts were not intentional some were very intentional. He took every obstacle he faced as a chance to live life to the fullest. His story was able to be told as both an autobiography and part of history. Though written by someone else he ensured that the words were just as he wanted and made sure he reviewed every draft.
Eddie Fung was an adventurous man that he went ahead to marry his third wife who was 24 years younger than him. Judy Young was the 56-year-old woman who married Eddie and ended up being the one to write his story. They met when Judy was on her quest to write her fifth book and since she was looking for a WWII story (Yung, 2007,p 2). She met Eddie and the first interview didn’t go so well as he was not so forthcoming with information. She had to therefore go and look into his history and learn more about him, the war, and all that he went through as a prisoner. She realised that he had gone through alot as a POW and his history was not so far from hers as Chinese, she, later on, made another interview appointment and that when they started to create the masterpiece. Her expertise as a bibliographer and a historian was the reason she was able to merge both aspects of Eddie’s life and tell his story just as he would have wanted. Eddie took this interview as an adventure as well since JUdy says that he told his stories so well by recreating scenarios and involving creative conversations. He even took this chance to propose to Judy even though she was 80 and she was 56.
Eddie Fung’s life as a prisoner impacted his life after the war. He had to live life appreciating the good days which outweighed the bad ones, this is because he now had food and was not hungry like before and most importantly he was not a prisoner but a free man. His hard life was not seen as a waste but as a lesson. He admits there are bad days, like his time as a POW and when his first wife Lois died due to a mental breakdown. He, however, says that dwelling in the past helps no one, the camp days were not as good but the fact that he survived them makes him use them as a reference point. At the end of the book he concludes, “One lesson I’ve learned well is that every moment that you’re alive, you’d better take advantage of the fact and enjoy it.” (Fung,2007,p 208). This is his come back whenever he felt sorry for himself as it reminded him of the reason why he went through all that he did.
Works Cited.
Orwell, G. (1943). Looking Back on the Spanish Civil War. Orwell in Spain. London: Penguin.
Orwell, G. (2016). Homage to Catalonia/Down and Out in Paris and London. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.
FUNG, E. (2007). A POW SURVIVOR. In YUNG J. (Ed.), The Adventures of Eddie Fung: Chinatown Kid, Texas Cowboy, Prisoner of War (pp. 139-162). SEATTLE; LONDON: University of Washington Press.
YUNG, J. (2007). INTRODUCTION. In FUNG E. (Author) & YUNG J. (Ed.), The Adventures of Eddie Fung: Chinatown Kid, Texas Cowboy, Prisoner of War (pp. XVII-2). SEATTLE; LONDON: University of Washington Press.