The Albatrosses of Our Generation (English Edition) - Vol. 2: 我們的那個年代──振翅雲霄（英文版）第二集

By National Taiwan Univ. Early Graduates, 北美臺大早期校友會 and NTUEG

The contributors to this volume were almost all born and raised during two recent tumultuous periods of China – First the devastating Sino Japanese War that lasted a little more than seven years, and then the civil war which drove most of them to Taiwan, a new land to them. Their childhood and adolescent years were often spent in moves, to

• Language: English
• Publisher: EHGBooks
• Release date: Nov 1, 2013
• ISBN: 9781625036902

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The Finders of Their Wings to Soar in the Sky

The contributors to this volume were almost all born and raised during two recent tumultuous periods of China – First the devastating Sino Japanese War that lasted a little more than seven years, and then the civil war which drove most of them to Taiwan, a new land to them. Their childhood and adolescent years were often spent in moves, to escape from the turbulences generated in the two wars. They then came to Taiwan, an impoverished land then which had just recovered from the Japanese occupation only to be engulfed in political and economical instabilities that overflowed from mainland China to Taiwan. After 1949, political stability was somewhat established but the Island still faced stark economical reality. The authors were lucky enough to be admitted to the best university in Taiwan, but the best was at best a euphemism. Students were often left to study on their own. Yet they persevered.

Many college graduates – a large fraction from Taiwan University – were able to secure scholarships from the United States and other countries to pursue post graduate studies. This was a relief, though temporary because the immigration laws in the United States then were not friendly to non-European citizens. Yet their hard work earned respect from U. S. manufacturers, corporations and last but not the least, universities and colleges. Difficulties with the immigration laws were often bypassed through special legislations. Eventually their efforts became a part of the forces that compelled the United States to change their immigration policies to become more equitable.

They succeeded in their new countries – though a majority stayed in the United States. They became elites of society – and, after several decades during which they have learned how to fly high enough to soar in the sky of accomplishments, they also earned the title Early Graduates. They are now enjoying the fruits of their lifetime hard work.

Yet they refuse to become idle. Many continue to work but many more move to other interests which they always wanted to do but could not find time to do. Among these interests is writing.

Story telling was invented by humans since prehistoric times, a gift to fellow humans as well to story tellers themselves. Writing preserves the stories told. This English volume and its sister volume in Chinese, tell true stories of the experiences of the authors during the tumultuous years of the two wars; some on pleasant moments in personal lives, but many were on sad encounters.  These stories were written as a part of human history, however trivial, so that future generations will know and learn – especially not to allow similar turmoil to happen again.

These two volumes contain only tidbit personal experiences that happened in a flash moment of human history, but these are stories of our generation. They tell the suffering, the struggle, occasional happy moments, but most importantly, the eventual fulfillment of a human goal – to soar, even if it were not in a physical sky.

On the Eve of the 85th Anniversary of Taiwan University and the happy Occasion of the 2013 Early Graduates Reunion

Host, Hong-Yee Chiu

Table of Contents

The Finders of Their Wings to Soar in the Sky

Table of Contents

曹祖寧George T. Tsao/1953臺大化工

Telling Family Background to my Four ABC Children

Descending Eagle and Awakening Dragon

施璧倫Pilwun Shih Wang/1954臺大歷史

Where do you come from?（你從哪裡來？）

The day we fled from the Japanese Airplanes

A Quiet Neighborhood

抗戰初期一個孩子被綁架的故事

A story of Prof. Hsia tsi-An（夏濟安教授）

羅碧英Ruby Pih Ying Lo Tsao/1957臺大外文

Ruby's Life Story

Childhood of Two Generations

A Journey in History

A Tale of Two Cultures

China's Culture of Peace Part I

China's Culture of Peace Part II

Observations in China-Inner Mongolia

朱祖凱T. K. Chu/1955臺大農工

150 Years of Chinese Students in America

Books in China’s bookstores

Aixin（愛心／Loving Heart）

黃道行Thomas T. Huang/1961臺大化學

An Ordinary Chinese - My Life Story

吳迺吉John Wu/1953臺大機械

A Part of My Memoir

莊紹文Alexander Chuang/1958臺大機械

My Childhood

盧志珂Chih-ko Lu/1955臺大農藝

My Childhood during War Times

How I decided to go to Taiwan, a story of fate!

Mushrooms from Horse Manure: A story of Destiny

李紹祖 Shaotsu Thomas Lee/1953臺大醫學

Eight Years War Of Resistance（八年抗戰）

Four Years Of Civil Strife（四載內糾）

On The Beautiful Island Of Formosa（寶島寄住）

Adapting and Living in a New Country（適居新鄉）

周紫薇Bernice Kao/1957臺大外文

Jobs: Finding, Losing, and Finding Them Again

馬德修Te-Hsiu Ma/1950臺大植物

Eight thousand miles under the clouds and moon

劉惠麗Hue Li Liu/1959臺大心理

How World War II Affected My Life

楊宏宇Joseph Hong-yu Yang/1955臺大法律

The Advantage of Being Cleared

林星雄Sing H. Lin/1963臺大電機

The Beauty & Joy of Nature conveyed through my travelogue website

呂鳳安Fang-An Lee/1952臺大土木

錢煦院士Shu Chien/1953臺大醫學

曹祖寧George T. Tsao/1953臺大化工

George T. Tsao was born in Nanjing，in 1931, a few month after the 9-1-8 Incident. During and after the Sino-Japanese War and Civil War, he moved from Nanjing with family to several places including Wu-Han, Shanghai, Zhejiang, back to Nanjing, and finally in 1948, to Taiwan. He received BS from National Taiwan University, MS from University of Florida and PhD from University of Michigan, all in Chemical Engineering. After 6 years in industry, he spent the next 40 years (1966-2006) as a faculty member first at Iowa State University and then Purdue University. His research and teaching work centered around renewable resource engineering and he served as the founding director of the Laboratory of Renewable Resource Engineering at Purdue from 1978-1999.

Telling Family Background to my Four ABC Children

My America born children want to know more about their roots. What I wrote below was for them to read. The life story starts with my grandfather, goes through my parents, my siblings and ends at the start of the Sino-Japanese War. This period of Chinese history as seen from a single family’s perspective might be of interests to other ABCs.

1. Preface

I turned 78 yesterday. Today, I will start to write about my life story, particularly stories during my early and younger years. My four children, at times, expressed the wishes to know more about stories of my and my wife’s early life. They want to know their Chinese roots. I am starting to fulfill their wishes.

In China, there is a long tradition in having family history books. My wife, Ruby, and I have started a new Tsao Family in the US. What I am going to write can be the first chapter of this new history book. I will use the style of talking to my children in the following paragraphs. I just hope my children can keep up the Chinese age-old tradition of family books.

2. Family History of Recent Past

In China, a family is usually very large, tied together with a history book. In the old days, a family may have a chapel that serves as the meeting venue for important family matters. A family may have an elder serving as the leader who oversees updating history book and other family activities, such as celebration of importance achievements of a family member, settling arguments among family members, and so on. However, many events such as civil wars, foreign invasions, flood, and other disasters often uproot families from native villages. Family chapel and organization become difficult to maintain. New families are started with people migrate away from original native village to other parts of China. Your mother’s family belongs to what is commonly called Hak Ka. Hak means guest and Ka means family. Hak Ka people were originated in Henan Province that was the budding place of Chinese civilization. War came, these people moved south and resettled in Fujian, Guangdong, Taiwan, and other parts of China and some even migrated as far away as Southeastern Asian countries like Malaysia and Singapore. These people, as a result, have been named Hak Ka, meaning guest people. New immigrants at new homes often started to organize new families, like there is now a new Tsao Family in the US. Other Chinese do migrate also but they have not been referred as Hakka people. The Hakka people from Henan speak more or less the same dialect even though they are now scattered widely in several southern provinces and even foreign countries. My impression has been that Hakka people have very strong feeling towards their families and native villages. Your Uncle Bob, Uncle Hank, Uncle Kenneth, your mother and her siblings and relatives now in Taiwan and even on China Mainland communicate with one another quite often, by emails, by telephone and by personal visits. The Lo Family had several reunions in the last few years. They also visited their native village in Da Pu County, Guangdong Province several times.

Generally speaking, there are two types of entries for a family history book. One type includes statements saying, for instance, George Tsu Ning Tsao married Ruby Pih Ying Lo of Da Pu County, Guangdong Province, and gave birth to four children: Helen, Diane, David and Darlene. With this kind of statements, it will be a relatively easy matter for someone to construct a complete family tree for this Tsao Family, up and down many generations. Armed with a well updated family book, one can find his/her roots easily. The second kind of entries includes statements describing more details of, for instance, what George Tsao did in this life. With the history book updated periodically, the family history will be well recorded.

The best record of family history in China is the one of the Kong Family that is made famous as well as important by Kong Fu Zhi whom has been better and commonly known in the West as Confucius born about 2500 years ago. This family tree has as many as 70 to 80 generations well recorded. This family has in Shandong Province, a cemetery where thousands of Kong family members have been buried over centuries.

Numerous other families in China, however, have not been well recorded like the Kong’s. For one, over centuries until modern times, less than 10% of Chinese population knew how to read and write. Those who can write naturally will place emphasis on those family members more successful and those stories that the family can be proud of. For an average person, the statement could be as simple as, for instance, John Doe married Mary Smith and give birth to three children named Blah, Blah, and Blah. This could be the only place one can find something in the family book about this John.

Now, let me start to tell you about the Tsao Family. I will start with my great grandfather. Frankly, I do not know anything about him. I do not even know his personal name. I know of no Tsao Family History Book in existence. If there were one, my great grandfather would have been probably just one of the Blahs.

So, I will move to the next generation to describe my grandfather. I remember him. He lived long, over 95 years. I was his youngest grandchild. When I was a kid, I was told that my grandfather in his younger years was in the business of vegetable cooking oils. In my young mind, I had envisioned of my grandpa running a grocery-like shop selling oils. However, later, when I was older I was told that was not the case. Grandpa was selling cooking oils through the use of a Bian-Dan. What is a bian-dan? Well, it is kind like selling oils using a pushing cart but not really a cart. A cart has one or two wheels, making pushing the goods around much easier. Bian-Dan is really just a bamboo stick of about 10 feet long with two baskets, hung at the two ends, containing cans of cooking oils, more or less weighed evenly. My grandpa carried the stick on his shoulder and walked around streets and to households to sell oil with customers bringing their own empty bottles.

The Tsao family house is located in a plaza named Grand Tsao Plaza in my native village. When I was older, I was told, however, the Grand Tsao Plaza was so named not because of my family but rather because of another Tsao Family that was prominent and successful. I visited my grandpa’s house several times before I was 7 years old. My impression was indeed it was a large building, old but large. I ran in it. Once, I tripped and bloodied my head against a table corner, which has since left a scar on my face that can still be visible even today. Diane broke her nose by jumping on a sofa and tumbling onto the edge of a coffee table, when she was about 4 years old, with our family living in Ames, Iowa. This is kind like like father like daughter. However, there is no heredity about that kind of mishaps.

Even though my grandpa was less than prominent in business, he knew the importance of education for his children. Grandpa and grandma had two sons and four daughters. My father was their second son and ranked fourth oldest among the six siblings. My cousins addressed my father Fourth Uncle.Grandpa sent both sons to have good education supported with the little money he made from selling oils with a bian-dan. The time was the time of change in China, from the old schooling system to the new schools fashioned after the Western style. My father’s older brother whom I addressed as Da-Bo meaning great uncle (or First Uncle), went by the old system.That was towards the end of the Qing Dynasty. Da-Bo passed the first level of examination and gained the title as Show-tsai. During the Chinese imperial days, the government maintained an examination system that lasted over one thousand years through a number of dynasties as the channel for getting new civil service officials. Everyone had an equal chance taking the examinations. The examinations were done in three levels. My Da-Bo passed the first level that involved an examination in the native county. The second level would have been an examination at the provincial capitol. Those who passed will gain the title of Ju-Ren.The third examination, also the highest level, would be done in Bei-Jing, the national capitol.Those who passed will gain the title as Jin-Shih. Each jin-shih would be appointed for positions in civil service such as a mayor of a city or a supervisor of a county. Even a show-tsai was highly respected as an educated person and as a person on his way to prominence. My Da-Bo was a show-tsai but before he had the chance to take the second level examination, revolution started. Qing Dynasty was over-thrown and the country became the Republic of China. Da-Bo did not get to become a government official. He turned to local education and served, for the rest of this life, as the principal of an elementary school that was established following the Western education system. That was indeed a time of change.

This 3-level examination system was open to every Chinese for over one thousand years. It provided every ordinary person with an equal opportunity to gain prominence and to become a government official. Confucius promoted education all his life. He himself taught three thousands pupils. He encouraged education for everyone, rich or poor, humble or noble, irrespective of one’s background. Education for one self or for one’s children has been long regarded the most important thing in life.This has been a long Chinese tradition. Scholars and educated persons are always highly respected in Chinese society.

My father was sent by grandpa to attend the Law School in the big city Nan-Jing, in programs established according to the Western system. My father graduated after studying for four years with a law degree. He was then assigned to be a judge at the local legal court in a city called Ning-Po. During his law school days, my father befriended Mr. Zhang from a fairly affluent family in a neighboring county. My native village is located in a county called Gao-You. Mr. Zhang came from a county called Hue-An. Both counties are located in the part of Jiangsu Province north of the famous Yangtse River.

My father was very outstanding, handsome and well mannered with good grades in school work. Mr Zhang, several years older than my father, had a good eye to spot my father as a candidate as his brother-in-law. Mr. Zhang had a younger sister named Zhang Kan. During one of those holidays, my father was invited by Mr. Zhang to visit his home in the neighboring county and naturally Mr. Zhang hinted his idea of my father marrying his sister. In those days, young men often saw their brides only on the day of marriage, after the ceremony. My father, as smart as he was, decided that he wanted to take a look of the lady first. When he retired to the guest room of the Zhang Family and was about ready to go to bed, my father heard a voice of Mr. Zhang’s mother, saying Xiao Kan, go take a look of the kitchen to make sure all fire sparks have died off. 

With quick thinking, my father went to the room door, opened it with a crack and stared at the path that he knew that this young lady would soon be walking by. He was right and succeeded. Well, making a long story short, Miss Zhang Kan later became my mother, your grandma. My mother later told my father that when he was presented to her mother by her big brother, she already had taken a long and deep peek of him through a curtain, probably hours before he had his chance.

My mother’s mother, that is, my maternal grandma was very nice and kind to me. Every time, I went to visit Zhang Family with my mother, I was usually given a lot of candies and cakes to eat and also toy gifts. As a kid, I enjoyed visiting Zhang Family much more than the Tsao Family. My maternal grandma had only two children: Mr. Zhang who became my uncle and my mother. I got a lot more attention at Zhang Family than I could expect in the old house of the Tsao Family. My maternal grandpa died in his young age and I never got to meet him.

As mentioned above, my paternal grand parents had two sons. Da-Bo stayed in the native village to look after his parents and had his life-long career as the principal of the local elementary school. Da-Bo had four sons and two daughters. My parent had seven children: five boys and two girls. My father started his life-long career as a legal person first as a judge in the local court of Ning-Po.

Upon arrival at Ning-Po with a new bride, my father went to work very hard. Soon, his good reputation as a fair judge as well as an easy-to-approach government official began to fly. He was given the enviable nickname as a Qing-Tian meaning a fair, people’s judge. I was told one story about two neighboring families that had a big argument about a door that separated the two family homes. Each family wanted the door to swing open towards the other way. My father was asked to settle the arguments in the county court house in the city. To the great surprise of those from the two families, my father said that he would come to their homes in the village to take a close look and then decide on the solution. A government official to visit our humble homes! was enough for the people to say that Oh! No! There is really no need to bother your honor to take so much trouble to resolve something this minor.  However, my father went anyway. His suggested solution was to install a sliding door instead of a swing door, which brought peace immediately.

A few years later, my father was promoted to the High Court of Zhe-Jiang Province and the family moved from Ning-Po to the provincial capitol city, Hang-Zhou. The legal system of the Republic of China has three levels of courts, fashioned after those of Japan and Germany. Each county has more or less one local court where each case, whether it is civil or criminal, is handled by one single judge. The legal system does not include trial by jury. The judges make the judgments. In the early days of the Republic when there were not enough trained judges, in some back countries, there might be only one local court handling cases from several counties. Judgments by local court can be challenged and thus reviewed and re-tried by going to a High Court. Each province in China has a High Court, usually located at the provincial capitol. Ning-Po city is in Zhe-Jiang Province neighboring with Jiang-Su Province where my native county Gao-You is located. At high courts, there are several working court groups each of which is consisted of three judges with one being the chief. My father soon became the chief of the First Civil Court Group of the Provincial High Court of Zhe-Jiang Province. For all his life, my father handled only civil cases. He liked to deal with people solving people’s problems and resolving people’s arguments. Throughout his legal career, my father had never touched cases involving criminals.

The Zhe-Jiang High Court is located in the city Hang-Zhou that was the national capitol of the Nan-Song Dynasty during 12th-13th Century AD. It has a lot of history as one can expect. It is also one of the most famous tourist cities of China. Another city in Jiang-Su Province called Su-Zhou, together with Hang-Zhou, have often been praised by a common saying There is heaven above, there are Su-Hang down under.  My parents lived in Hang-Zhou for over ten years. The family home was built on the shore of West Lake that has been the center piece of the beauty of Hang-Zhou City. Numerous poems, stories, paintings, operas, and other art pieces have been created over the centuries, praising West Lake in particular and Hang-Zhou in general.

When the position of the Governorship of the Zhe-Jiang Provincial High Court was vacated, my father was asked to take charge. Instead of accepting the promotion, my father expressed the desire of being promoted to become a justice of the Superior Court of the Republic of China located in the national capitol Nan-Jing. My father did not like to deal with daily administrative and business matters; he preferred just being a justice. His wish was soon granted and Tsao Family moved to Nan-Jing where my father attended law school years back. The law school had since been expanded and became the Law School of Central University. Soon upon arrival, my father was also appointed a professor of law of the University. For having enough new judges to support an expanding legal system throughout the modernized China, the Government also carried out special training programs. My father was a professor for those programs also and got to have numerous judges addressing him as teacher throughout his life. According to the long tradition of education started by Confucius, a teacher is almost as highly respected by pupils as a father by his sons in China.

For a period of several years, the nation was prosperous. Those were the peak days of the Nationalist Government under the leadership of Chiang Kai Shek (Jiang Jie Shi). My father’s combined salary from the court and the university was about 600 silver dollars per month. My parents built new homes in Nan-Jing and bought farms in the country. Those were probably the most prosperous and happy years for my parents. However, that was soon the time of Sino-Japanese war, first taking place with Japanese Army occupying the three provinces in Northeastern China on September 18th, 1931, then invasion by diffusive military movements into Northern China near Bei-Jing Area, and then finally full scale war broken out on July 7th of 1937, about four years before Pearl Harbor. I was born on December 4th, 1931 to grow up under the shadow of war with Japan.

When my father was busy with court work and also teaching work, my mother was busy giving birth to children and building a comfortable home for the Tsao Family. During the years in Ning-Po, my mother gave birth to three boys. My oldest big brother Tsu-Wei (your cousin, Ter Fung’s father) was born in Ning-Po. So were 2nd and 3rd big brothers. As I was told, my 3rd big brother was very smart. When Tsu-Wei was old enough, my parents started to teach him simple words and numbers. Once Tsu-Wei was unable to answer and recognize a Chinese character, my 3rd big brother jumped on it, saying It is Din. My parents were so surprised because he was thought to be too little to learn words yet. However, misfortunes soon stroke the family. There was an outbreak of pneumonia. Little cure was available in those days. The whole family got sick and my 2nd and 3rd big brother did not survive. That was totally devastating to my father, mourning the loss of his beloved sons for days no end. My mother helped him to wipe off tears and promised my father to give birth of many more children. That was when my father was soon promoted to the high court in Hang-Zhou.

During the ten years or so in Hang-Zhou, my mother gave birth to six more children: four boys and two girls. Together with the oldest son, Tsu-Wei who was born in Ning-Po, my parents had seven children. Five boys and two girls is considered somehow as a lucky combination in Chinese custom. Tsao Family had certainly grown and grown well in number of kids and also grown in my father’s career and family fortune. In those days, the government salaries for judges and officials were very high. For centuries, in Chinese history, there has been a policy as well as a saying that the method of prevention of corruption is high salary. The Chinese words are Yang Lien with high salary. Lien is a Chinese word opposite to corruption. There seems no good direct translation of Lien into an English word. Yang is a Chinese word meaning cultivate. This policy recognizes two basic human characters: the dark side and the bright side. A government official often has power. The dark side says power will likely bring corruption. The bright sides says so long as the government official is reasonably well paid, he will prefer not to do corruptive acts that would always leave a scar on the heart and mind of a sensible person. In the US, the bank executives get to have sky high salaries but not government officials. In my opinion, that is one of the reasons why government employees are not so highly regarded in this American culture. And, not all the best qualified persons would want to have life-long careers in government.

After the family moved to Nan-Jing with my father’s promotion to the Superior Court, misfortune happened again. The youngest boy died of disease. In Nan-Jing, soon afterwards, my mother gave birth again to one more boy, named Tsu Ning that is me, the youngest among again five boys and two girls. My mother was forty one years old when I was born. Due to either tired of child bearing or having already the luck combination or both, my mother aborted next pregnancy. This lucky combination really meant a lot to me. That was close! So, among the seven, the oldest was born in Ning-Po and the youngest was born in Nan-Jing. The middle ones were born in Hang-Zhou. That is my generation of the Tsao Family. My mother gave birth to ten children in total, with three who did not survive beyond childhood. That was a great performance.

According to Chinese customary sayings, there is another lucky combination in numbers. A person is considered very lucky to have a, as I can best translate, Perfect Ten. What is a perfect ten? Well, it is a person who has at the same time living spouse, father and mother, son and daughter, older brother and older sister and also young brother and younger sister. That is living ten, a Perfect Ten. I was born the youngest. So,automatically, I was disqualified from having a Perfect Ten. However, we do have one who had Perfect Ten in the immediate family. Who? Well, that is your mom. When David finally came, your mom had a Perfect Ten, a lucky person for all her life. David probably did not but now can finally realize the significance of his arrival. Chinese like to play with these lucky combinations. That is probably how we get to have 1.3 billion Chinese in the world nowadays. That is how I can sit here to write about Tsao Family stories.

Once the fully scale war broke out in 1937 when I was 6-7 years old, the stories will turn more tragic and sad. A few months ago, I wrote about 20 pages describing my life story during and after Sino-Japanese war and the subsequent civil war between Nationalists and Communists with a title for the writing The life path that I did not walk.It was in Chinese. I wish my children to know enough Chinese to read it.

Descending Eagle and Awakening Dragon

The author lived in the US since 1954.  He visited Mainland once or twice each year after China started reform and opening-up (改革開放) in late 1970’s. This report describes the changes that he has observed and experienced in the US and in China.

I was born in Nanjing, China, moved to Taiwan as a 12th grade high school student, attended Taida for a BS in Chemical Engineering and received training in the 2nd class of the Military Reserve School.  After 18 days on the passenger ship-- President Cleveland, crossing the Pacific, I arrived at San Francisco in August, 1954 and have ever since lived in the US. Since Chinese reform and opening up (改革開放) in late 1970’s, I have been visiting Mainland China and Taiwan, once or twice each year. In the last 60 or so years, I witnessed the US peak as a super power and the gradual decline. In the last 30 or so years, I watched as well as felt the awakening of China and its impressive growth.

Democracy is the foundation of American politics and government.  Free enterprise is the foundation of American economy and business. These two have propelled the US as the most powerful and the