A Professor & CEO: A Fascinating Journey to Success

By Richard T. Cheng

This is a true story of this man full of adventures and unusual encounters that are highly interesting to read.

                                                                &nbsp

• Language: English
• Publisher: Book Vine Press
• Release date: Sep 21, 2019
• ISBN: 9781950955725

Richard T. Cheng

Richard Tien-Ren Cheng was born in June 1934. Since the age of three, he had been suffering from the war between China and Japan and the Chinese civil war between the nationalists and the communists. He moved frequently to escape the war and suffered immensely from losing his close relatives. At the age of fifteen, he escaped the mainland China to Taiwan, where he grew up and completed his undergraduate education. He was married in Taiwan. When he decided to go to the States for his master's degree, he left his wife, a son, and another son. When he arrived at the school, he had thirty dollars to his name. He struggled for ten years in between studying and working. When he finally finished his doctoral degree, he became an educator in the effort to develop computer science programs for various institutions of higher education. He was promoted from assistant professor to associate professor to full professorship in six years and to eminent professorship in another three years. In 1985, he decided to give up his position as an eminent professor and chairman of computer science at Old Dominion University to establish a small company. Through less than five years of struggle, he achieved the goal of making it a multimillion-dollar company. In 1991, he received the largest contract the IRS awarded to a small company, which was for $240 million over six years. He has been active in the Organization of Chinese Americans, the Committee of 100, and the Chinese-American Foundation for Americans. He also has done a lot of philanthropic work that benefit to several universities.

Book preview

Copyright © 2019 by Richard T. Cheng.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without express written permission from the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other non-commercial uses permitted by copyright law.

Printed in the United States of America.

Book Vine Press

2516 Highland Dr.

Palatine, IL 60067

Contents

Chapter 1: In the Cloak of the Night

Chapter 2: Casualties of the War

Chapter 3: The Poorest of the Poor

Chapter 4: The War Provided Education

Chapter 5: A Treacherous Retreat

Chapter 6: Purple Flowers and Crashing Plane

Chapter 7: Rice Paddy Fisherman

Chapter 8: The Beginner’s Luck

Chapter 9: The War Ends with Japan

Chapter 10: Fortune from the Sky

Chapter 11: Return to the Ruins

Chapter 12: Because He Is a Communist

Chapter 13: The Calm between Storms

Chapter 14: The Flame of the Civil War

Chapter 15: Good-bye, Mainland

Chapter 16: My Paradise

Chapter 17: Explosion in the Harbor

Chapter 18: Ventures in the Paradise

Chapter 19: The Turning Point

Chapter 20: Good-bye, Lion

Chapter 21: The Road to Adulthood

Chapter 22: Drowning After a Typhoon

Chapter 23: Critical Decisions

Chapter 24: Rioting against the Americans

Chapter 25: The Young Entrepreneurs

Chapter 26: The Military Service

Chapter 27: My New Experience of Life

Chapter 28: The Big Medal

Chapter 29: In Love and Marriage

Chapter 30: Leaving Taiwan

Chapter 31: Typhoon and the Seasick Shepherd

Chapter 32: Lost on the High Seas

Chapter 33: Handy Man on Board

Chapter 34: Arriving in My Dreamland

Chapter 35: My First Impressions of the USA

Chapter 36: Gizzards for the Puppy

Chapter 37: My First Part-Time Job

Chapter 38: Schoolwork in the United States

Chapter 39: A Near-Death Trip to a Frozen World

Chapter 40: Decision to Stay in the USA

Chapter 41: Returning to Wisconsin

Chapter 42: Long Last: A Family Reunion

Chapter 43: Teaching at Stout

Chapter 44: Mr. D: A Real Piece of Work!

Chapter 45: Near-Fatal Penicillin Reaction

Chapter 46: The Doctoral Degree

Chapter 47: U.S. Citizenship

Chapter 48: Rochester Institute of Technology

Chapter 49: The Long-Lost Relative

Chapter 50: The Largest CS Program in the United States

Chapter 51: The Saudi Programs

Chapter 52: Starting a Small Company

Chapter 53: Running a Million-Dollar Company

Chapter 54: Trips to China and My Career Cross Road

Chapter 55: Most Devastating Experience

Chapter 56: A Double Agent

Chapter 57: I Lost My Mama

Chapter 58: Diving into the Commercial World

Chapter 59: The Pentagon Work and More

Chapter 60: Buildings Aligned with Feng Shui

Chapter 61: The Largest Contract—IRS

Chapter 62: The Tough Negotiators

Chapter 63: Awards—National and Others

Chapter 64: Commerce Delegation to Beijing

Chapter 65: Pioneer Four

Chapter 66: No More Landlords for Us

Chapter 67: The $240 Million Professor—Article

Chapter 68: Good Deeds Never Go Unpunished

Chapter 69: OCA and the Committee of 100

Chapter 70: Witnessing the Hong Kong Changeover

Chapter 71: The World-Class Philanthropist

Chapter 72: Another Close Call

Chapter 73: A State Visit with Pat Robertson

Chapter 74: A Cancer Survivor

Chapter 75: Where My Old Friends Are

Chapter 76: The Passing of Aziz and Baba

Chapter 77: Retirement, Years of Enjoyment

Foreword

He was called the $240 Million Professor by the Transpacific Magazine on its May 1994 issue. As a result, he was bestowed the honor of many awards, including that given by President George W. Bush in the White House in September 1991.

This book A Professor and CEO truthfully described events that happened in his life. It included so much ventures and so many characters. Sometimes it was very moving, and other times it was funny. It is indeed very interesting to read the whole book to find out how a country boy could be so successful to become the $240 Million Professor.

In the beginning it described the suffering he had endured between the ages three and fifteen. When China was in the war with Japan and the civil war, he almost lost his life to illness and ill-intended deed by a neighbor. And in the middle of running away from the invaders, he was separated from his mother in a midway big city. His father was a military man, always away for the war. He had lived with his mother in a mud hut and eating meager food until he became a rice paddy fisherman, so he and his mother could eat fish, snails, and eels. When the war with Japan ended, they returned to Nanjing and found their home was a pile of rubbles. The peaceful time lasted two years, and then they had to run from the communists. In the darkness of the night, the mother and son escaped the city of Fu-Chow to board a junk to a troop carrier to Taiwan.

Later he described the peaceful life he first enjoyed in Taiwan. He entered the local high school. He was involved in a mishap that almost killed him when experimenting with gunpowder. He was almost drowned in the ocean when he went for swimming after a typhoon. In the military training camp, he wrote three proposals for electronic-controlled weapons. That proposal was accepted by the Defense Department and implemented. As a result, he was awarded a medal. Then he fell in love and got married. He realized the USA was the mecca for technology, so he decided to go to the USA. Because of lack of fund, he decided to take a cargo ship. The ship was hit by a large typhoon and had lost it bearings. Finally, after thirty-three days, he arrived at his destination.

Then he described how he had overcome the shortage of fund. With $30 in his pocket, he had to face the day-to-day expenses. He had found a part-time job during his first week in the United States. He worked and studied and sent $10–$20 back to his wife every month. After two years in the United States, he fell in love with this country, so he asked his wife to come and live here temporarily. After they had been here for a few years, they wanted to become citizens of this country. In 1971, they were sworn in as U.S. citizens. After he received his PhD in 1971, he started to build new computer science departments for various universities. From 1971 to 1975, he was promoted to full professor rank, and in 1979, he was appointed emeritus professor. In 1985, he started a small company, and in 1988, the company had multimillion revenue.

Finally, he described the personal losses and awards in his life. In this book, he told how he had become the $240 Million Professor—how the opportunity came, how he negotiated with the vendor and the government, and how he was awarded the $240 million contract. As a result, he was bestowed with all sorts of awards. Transpacific Magazine wrote an article about him in May 1994 and called him the $240 Million Professor. He had suffered the loss of his youngest son, mother, father, and some dear friends. He had survived a bout with cancer and suffered pneumonia while on a trip. He revisited his long-lost friends and relatives and found out how they were doing. He had visited many heads of states and lectured throughout the world. In his retirement years, he traveled all around the world by land trips, ocean, and river cruises, many with his poker buddies back in Rochester, New York.

Chapter 1

In the Cloak

of the Night

Images of that hot and muggy summer afternoon in Nanjing still float by hazily in my mind and in my dreams. I remember strangers in our house hastily packing trunks and noisily pushing aside furniture. Two horse-drawn carriages pulled up to our gate, and the larger luggage was hoisted on top of the roofs while the smaller pieces were tucked inside the cabins. I can still hear those voices shouting inside the carriages and those steel-rimmed carriage wheels rumbling on the cobblestone streets, drowning out the clic-ke-ty-clack of horseshoes landing on pavement.

At the Age of One in Nanjing

I remember getting out at a riverfront landing area in the early-evening dark, strangely unlit by any lights. Mama, Nai-Nai (paternal grandmother), Yeh-Yeh (paternal grandfather), his assistant, Jie-Jie (older sister), and our nanny, Ming, crammed into a small, wooden boat with several people from Yeh-Yeh’s office and some strangers. Moving swiftly off, the boat stopped suddenly out in the water far away from shore. In the darkness where I could not see, I felt strangers held me high above their heads and passed me from one set of hands to another, from our small boat to a larger boat, where I was finally lowered gently into Ming’s lap.

Yeh-Yeh was telling us all to shush. Japanese spies could be out here, could be looking for us, and we mustn’t make a noise. We shouldn’t let them know we were out here. Tall, strong men powered the bamboo poles and oars. When we reached the narrows of the river, with its swift, rushing water, we were towed by groups of men on shore with a fat, heavy rope. I still remembered the disturbing, unfamiliar sounds of them chanting in unison. It was not at all like the soft hums of my Nai-Nai when she would hold me in her lap until I would fall peacefully to sleep back home. I was longing to turn around and go back there now, to be tucked in the warmth of my own bed instead of being here in this scary darkness, with water all around and no bed to sleep on. An oil lamp hanging from the middle of the ceiling of our cabin swung back and forth constantly, casting spooky shadows on the wall. I squirmed against Ming and pestered Mama continually, but I did not cry. I did not want to make a sound.

It was even darker now on the river. The poles and oars resumed their rhythmic motion. When the boat pulled ashore later that evening, I was gently swooped up again and passed by hands out of the boat, and I was surprised when my feet landed on solid ground. Someone carried me while my family walked, until we finally entered some building—a hotel, Mama called it. When I looked around the room curiously, I spotted a desk drawer half opened. Peeking inside, I stumbled upon a box of my favorite cookies. Look what I have found! I shouted to Mama and Jie-Jie. When I offered some to my sister, she quickly grabbed some.

At daylight, we were back in the boat, heading farther up the river. Sailors steered clear of huge rocks and floating debris. I was tired and tried to nap in Mama’s or Ming’s lap, still wishing I were back in my own bed or playing in my own backyard. Nai-Nai and Yeh-Yeh hovered close to the small table with a hot teapot and cups, drinking tea constantly. When we hit more of those narrow places of the river, I watched intently as a thin rope was tossed from our boat to people in the water. After they swam ashore, they tied that thin rope to a fat rope. When the men pulled that fat, heavy rope on their backs, our boat seemed to move faster than when it was powered by the oars and bamboo poles. We were towed several times like this during the day. Mama said a different group of men towed us each time because they all had their own territories and made a living that way. Of course, I could not understand what that all meant.

Before dark, we stopped on shore again and headed for another hotel. I ran ahead into our room, where I came upon another half-opened drawer with another box of cookies—my cookies. It was like magic! That’s how I remembered the days that followed: another hotel, the next room, the next drawer, and the next box of cookies. For twenty days total, I was never once disappointed.

When we reached shore for the final time, the boat was docked on a huge pier. A long board was extended from the boat to the deck of the pier. I watched Jie-Jie walking down that board by herself without any help—ahead of me. Though quite scared, I wanted to be just like her, so I volunteered to walk on my own too. When I made it to the pier, I was wishing Baba (Father) had been there to see me, knowing he would be proud of me, but he had stayed behind in Nanjing where he was a cadet in the Huang-Poo Military Academy. Mama told Jie-Jie and me that he would be joining us in a few days.

With Jie-Jie and Nai-Nai in Nanjing

Yeh-Yeh hired several rickshaws, and our luggage was hauled from the boat and placed in them. I would be riding in one rickshaw with Yeh-Yeh, and Jie-Jie would be riding in another one with Mama.

This is Chunking, Mama said before we boarded, our new home, the war capital.

We had just completed our first escape from the growing dangers of war in China. It was August 1937. I was three years old.

I was born into a military family shaped by war and military missions. Chuan Cheng, my Yeh-Yeh, was a teacher at a prestigious school in the early 1900s when he heard the call of revolution. He soon organized a group from Fujian Province to join the forces of Dr. Dun Yat-Sen in his campaign to topple the Chin dynasty. Yeh-Yeh first served as commander of all revolutionary forces in Fujian and then was promoted to military commissioner under Dr. Sun. A few years after the revolution succeeded and the Republic of China was established in 1911, Yeh-Yeh was appointed senior editor for the central historical commission, where he wrote and edited important documents and historical records about the major events of the revolution and the new republic.

With Jie-Jie in Nanjing

A slender, bespectacled man with a goatee, Yeh-Yeh had always been very devoted to Baba. As an only child in a well-to-do family, Baba had always gotten everything he asked for. With Yeh-Yeh’s permission, Baba had attended the Central Police Academy with plans to become a detective and had even studied hypnosis under the most famous hypnotist at the time before enrolling in a medical school in Shanghai. But when the war with the Japanese began to heat up, Baba decided to become a soldier to defend our country. He passed the rigorous entrance examination of the Huang-Poo Military Academy, where seven hundred cadets were selected from over 10,000 applicants, and became a cadet in 1933, the year before I was born.

Nanjing, the capital of the Republic of China, was still in a relatively peaceful state before 1937. We lived with my grandparents in a large, comfortable house in an upscale neighborhood, with friends and followers of Yeh-Yeh frequently stopping by to swap stories. Sometimes they would ask for assistance, and Yeh-Yeh was always willing to lend a helping hand.

While Baba was attending the Huang-Poo Military Academy, he came home only during weekends. Military artifacts and pictures of major historical figures and events adorned many of the walls of our house. Mama told me that while she was pregnant with me, she would frequently walk among the historical memorabilia because Yeh-Yeh told her that what she saw then would be passed on to me. She regarded his collection as the most positive influence.

With Nai-Nai in Nanjing

Up in northeastern China, the Japanese already occupied Manchuria, where they had established a puppet government—the Manchukuo—after fabricating an incident in 1931. A section of thirty-nine inches of a railroad owned by the Japanese was damaged by a small explosive charge on September 18, 1931. Blaming the Chinese, the Japanese immediately attacked. They were able to beat the defending Chinese forces and occupy city after city, and finally the entire Manchuria. Upon entering each new city, the imperial army torched buildings, raped women, and killed numerous civilians in what was known in China as the 918 Incident. The cruelty of Japanese invaders already was well known by all the people of China after they had entered Manchuria.

Along the border between Manchuria and the northern provinces of China, Japanese troops constantly harassed Chinese border guards and civilians in a plot designed to create tension and eventually provoke incidents to justify a full invasion of China. On July 7, 1937, the imperial Japanese troops did indeed fabricate another incident. They claimed that one of their soldiers was missing and used it as an excuse to attack China at Lu-Guo-Qiao (Marco Polo Bridge), near Bei-Jing. In a swift succession of military maneuvers, the Japanese invaded Bei-Jing, Tientsin, Tsingtao, Shanghai, and other coastal cities. Leaders of the Chinese government knew that Nanjing was going to be the next target. In anticipation of the attack, the government decided to abandon Nanjing as its capital and establish a temporary war capital in Chunking, some five hundred miles to the west in central China.

Orders were issued for important government agencies and operations, including both the historical commission and the Huang-Poo Military Academy, to be moved from Nanjing to Chunking well ahead of the Japanese advance because of their strategic importance. As a key member of the historical commission, Yeh-Yeh and our family were among the first to leave in the evacuation, which involved several other government officials. Baba joined us a few weeks later when the academy was moved.

We had fled Nanjing by manually powered boat under the cloak of darkness on that muggy August night in 1937 because of fears of what the Japanese would do if we traveled any other way. If we went by train, they might bomb us. A larger steamboat would have made us an easier target, especially with Yeh-Yeh and other important government officials aboard. The main Japanese troops were still two hundred miles from Nanjing when we were evacuated, but their spies were active everywhere.

With Yeh-Yeh and Jie-Jie in Nanjing We completed that passage up the Yangtze River safe and sound, although leaving home came at a high personal cost. Yeh-Yeh, who had become wealthy in real estate trading before the revolution, had to leave behind his extensive properties in Nanjing and Fu-Chow. But with the Japanese zeroing in on Nanjing for its most forceful invasion, and the subsequent mass killing, my family’s rushed departure clearly turned out to be a stroke of good fortune for us.

In December 1937, just a few months after we were evacuated, the Japanese stormed into Nanjing with full fury. After twenty-seven days of fierce fighting against Chinese forces between Shanghai and Nanjing, the Japanese occupied the entire city. Even with inferior equipment, brave Chinese soldiers killed more than 50,000 Japanese soldiers and wounded more than 200,000 others before Nanjing was lost. Our own losses totaled some 120,000 killed and 240,000 wounded. In the next several weeks, with no active resistance from the civilians who had stayed behind in Nanking, the Japanese slaughtered more than 300,000 men, women, and children in the city alone—a third or more of the city’s total population who had chosen to stay or could not leave.

The terrible stories of the despicable acts of the Japanese soldiers between December 1937 and February 1938 in Nanjing began to filter through my family’s friends and acquaintances, the government officials, and some news accounts. At first, people didn’t want to believe what they were hearing. People thought the stories were too dramatic and might be government’s propaganda. But as time went by and similar accounts rapidly multiplied and spread, with additional photos in newspapers as proof, people began to realize the stories were all real.

Jie-jie in a Park in Nanjing

Specific stories about imperial soldiers tested their samurai swords and techniques by beheading thousands of innocent citizens. Photos showed Japanese soldiers raising their military swords and chopping heads off and stacking victims’ heads in a line while standing around laughing. Other victims were shot by rifles or machine guns by singular soldiers or by groups in firing squads. The dead were pushed into a mass grave. Photos also showed groups of Chinese were burned to death from gas poured on them by Japanese soldiers. Thousands of women and girls, some as young as twelve, were raped and then bayoneted to death. Photos showed the soldiers shot arrows into women’s reproductive organs after raping them. Such extreme cruelty was shocking to our people, from very old to very young. We also saw photos of blocks of houses and city buildings being torched and burned to ground.

The atrocity came to be called the Rape of Nanking and was one of the most shocking episodes of horror against humanity during the entire World War II era. I do not profess to know everything about the events of war in my country in those years, but I am clear about one thing. If my family and I had not been evacuated from Nanjing, we most likely would have been among the victims of what happened in Nanking.

Chapter 2

Casualties of the War

My Jie-Jie, whose given name was Tien-Tang, scampered out the door of our first-floor suite in Chunking and headed for the main gate to our large, rectangular residential building. She quickly climbed the high threshold and scurried down the street that ran along the Yangtze River, Ming frantically chasing after her. This scene was repeated almost every day. Sometimes Jie-Jie would reach the nearby shops before Ming could reel her back in, often stopping to buy candy to appease her. Although I was only a year younger than Jie-Jie, she never swept me along on her great adventures, no doubt fearing that her smaller brother would slow her down. Baba called her the brave soul of the family and was very proud of her.

One day back in Nanjing, when I was about two years old, Baba had tested my own bravery. He stood stoically on one side of a single-board bridge over a ditch that was about two steps for an adult, ordering me to walk to him from the other side.

Come. Walk over the bridge, he said as he extended his right arm.

But the board looked so narrow and the ditch so deep that I was afraid I would fall in and never get out. My feet would not move when Baba repeated his order.

Why do you not walk over to me? Baba demanded.

I am scared, I replied.

What do you do when you are scared?

I will just cry, I said.

Cry? You are not brave like your Jie-Jie, Baba proclaimed. He told Mama later that I was the weakling of the family. Indeed, I had seen Jie-Jie hopping over the single board several times without any hesitations.

As I watched Jie-Jie scamper over the threshold of that gate of the big house now, I secretly imagined my own excursions to come. Of course, I longed for a male playmate to come along with me, so I was quite happy when my brother Tien-Tse was born not so long after we settled in Chunking. Di-Di (younger brother) arrived prematurely by a month but otherwise was healthy. I loved to get close to him when he was awake and just look at him, marveling at the way he smiled. I had many plans for what we would do together.

I liked our new home better than I had expected. Across the street, a concrete and stone wall about three feet high separated the street from a steep cliff that hung over the Yangtze River. The city proper of Chunking loomed on the other side of the river. By day, I would gaze across at its many buildings a distance away, clumped together like a massive gray and black carpet covering the entire mountainside. At night, I watched the city glowing with thousands of dazzling incandescent and neon lights, like hundreds of tiny candles on a big cake.

At Age of 4 in Chungking

Baba only came home from the relocated military academy in Chunking on weekends, and Yeh-Yeh’s friends from the government started coming by again, as they had in Nanjing. When Jie-Jie wasn’t testing Ming with her outdoor escapades, she would be inside reading her picture books. Mama said Jie-Jie’s reading was quite advanced for a five-year-old, and she had already learned many of the Chinese characters when she was only three and a half. Yeh-Yeh constantly brought home her new books about birds, animals, plants, and the planet.

Come. Sit down, and let me read the story to you, Jie-Jie would say as she waved her book in front of me. But each time, I would refuse her and run off to play with the boy on the second floor.

One day not long after Di Di’s birth, I heard Mama tell Yeh-Yeh that she felt some fever on Jie-Jie’s forehead. I saw the tired look on her pretty face, her normally sparkling eyes dull and listless. Yeh-Yeh was knowledgeable about Chinese medicine, so he formulated an herbal medicine that Mama cooked and fed to her. But Jie-Jie’s fever had not gone down by the next day, and now she began to cough frequently. Yeh-Yeh took her across the river to the city proper to see a doctor, who gave her only the most basic cold medicine and then sent her home.

With Yeh-Yeh and Baba at Nai-Nai’s Burial

Yeh-Yeh, however, was not convinced that Jie-Jie only had a cold, so he took her to another doctor, who diagnosed her condition as pneumonia. But with normal supplies like most medicine cut off from the west because of the war, he could offer no effective medication for Jie-Jie. Yeh-Yeh was so upset and disappointed but he had no options other than to take Jie-Jie home without any proper treatment.

I was not allowed to enter Jie-Jie’s room, and Mama told me I must be quiet, so she could get well. As I waited anxiously for Jie-Jie to come bouncing out of her door again, I remembered playing with her in the snow back in Nanking. She used to point up at the huge icicles hanging from the gutters of our house and say, Ice pagoda, because the formation looked like a pagoda hanging upside down.

`I watched Yeh-Yeh paced the floor, anxiety mounting behind those eyeglasses. He had sought help from his friend high in the government and searched throughout Chunking for a source of proper medication but could not find any. The medicine simply could not come through the Japanese embargo. In desperation, Yeh-Yeh formulated an herbal medicine from local drugstore and cooked it for Jie-Jie, but he told Mama the medicine might not be strong enough to cure pneumonia. Mama worked to keep Jie-Jie comfortable—holding her, rocking her, and humming to her. But within three days after her fever started, Jie-Jie lacked even the strength to cough. Looking as peaceful as if she was sleeping, Jie-Jie died in Mama’s arms just a week after the fever was detected.

Mama wept openly, and Yeh-Yeh sobbed. Nai-Nai did not come out of her room for the entire day. Yeh-Yeh arranged for Jie-Jie’s funeral, and I was kept home with Ming when she was buried.

Where is Jie-Jie? I asked when she didn’t come home with Mama.

Your Jie-Jie has died, she cried.

I could not understand why.

When Baba came home, he stomped his heavy boots on the wood floor several times, tears running down his own face. He used to call Jie-Jie the jewel in the palm of his hand.

When will Jie-Jie come back, Mama? I asked after not seeing Jie-Jie for a few days. I missed her so much and I wished I had agreed to sit with her and listen to her read those picture books to me when she had asked. I was hoping for another chance.

When people die, their spirit will go to heaven and will not come back again, Mama explained, tears streaking down her cheeks. Your Jie-Jie will stay in heaven and never come back.

I did not really understand about heaven, so I asked Mama again the next day and she gave me the same response. So, I asked again the next day and the day after that and every day until I forgot why I was asking.

Your Jie-Jie was so smart. Baba thought she was a genius and would become a scholar, Mama said one day. Now she is gone. We have only you and Di-Di. I hope you two will be good sons to us.

Nai-Nai continued to spend more time in bed. My fifty-eight-year-old grandmother had suffered with high blood pressure and had been sick for years. She was quite strict and cold with most of our family, with a quick temper and a harsh tongue that kept others out of her way. But to me, she seemed very different. At night, she used to hold me in her arms and hum to me, helping me to fall asleep. But now that Jie-Jie had died, when I wanted my Nai-Nai most, she no longer held me at all. Mama said she had been in shock from Jie-Jie’s death and that since the move to Chunking she had to use less-effective substitutes for her medication.

I worried about Nai-Nai and became more dedicated to the task Mama had assigned to me. Most mornings, as was the custom, I would go to Nai-Nai’s room and formally ask her to have breakfast with the family. Now I made an extra effort to always be at her door on time—as soon as everybody was seated at our dining table.

Nai-Nai, please get up! Time for breakfast! I yelled as loudly as possible one morning.

She did not respond. I opened the door, walked to her bedside, and pushed her firmly several times. When she did not move an inch, I rushed to Mama.

Mama, Nai-Nai did not wake up when I pushed her!

Your Nai-Nai has also gone to heaven now. She will not be with us anymore, Mama said, sobbing.

I cried with her too. At four years old, it was difficult for me to understand how one after another of my loved ones would just disappear from our home and never come back to us again.

What was left of my family seemed turned upside down by this second tragic death, except that Baba did not act so sad as when he found out Nai-Nai’s death. Even before Nai-Nai’s passing, I had heard him muttering to Mama about how Nai-Nai used to scold him for his wrongdoings in front of others when he was young and how she compared him unfavorably to his two older cousins. He would say that his mother had treated those two sons by her older sisters far better than her own son. He complained bitterly about her lack of motherly tenderness and even questioned whether she was his real mother.

For many days after Nai-Nai’s unexpected death, Yeh-Yeh just sat and stared into the emptiness. I climbed on his lap and tried to make him laugh, even tugging at his goatee, but I could not even raise a smile from him. I missed his calming voice and his stories more than ever, but I began to play more outside now that I, the oldest child, was able to go out without a nanny. Ming was a very pretty girl in her early twenties. She stayed inside and became much more attentive to Yeh-Yeh. His spirits gradually lifted from the extra attention, but Mama was worried.

I don’t feel comfortable to see Daddy and Ming get so close, Mama told Baba when he was home for one of his weekends. Something might happen between them, and that would be bad for Daddy, Mama said.

With Yeh-Yeh, Mama, Baba and Di-Di

You are imagining things! Baba disagreed. What makes you to say that?

Well, she is so young and attractive, and he is lonesome. Why don’t we find a nice, young man for her to marry? Mama asked.

I don’t think so, Baba responded. Daddy needs someone to take care of him. Besides, he is sixty-three years old and Ming is only twenty-one. I don’t believe anything could happen between them.

I did not understand exactly what they meant, but the question was quickly dropped, just as it would whenever Baba and Mama had disagreements. Baba always had the final word. My parents had been married by the old Chinese tradition. A matchmaker had made the arrangements for the two prominent families, though both sets of their parents were old friends. Baba and Mama had never even met before the day of their wedding in Shanghai back in 1932. They were both seventeen.

The dark cloud of sadness in our house slowly began to lift. Mama told me we were still fortunate to be living in one of the richest cities in the richest province of China. I was just happy that we lived next door to a general store, where I would often go with Ming or Mama to buy candy. But air raid sirens warning of approaching Japanese bombers sounded almost daily. Most of the time, it was the city proper of Chunking across the river getting bombed. We could see the bright flashes and hear the muffled booms. Sometimes, the bombers would bomb targets in the vicinity, of our house. I can remember times when Yeh-Yeh held me in his arms as he paced our suite. When he heard loud explosions nearby, he would cover me with his body close to an inner wall, so I was protected on both sides.

While I was still waiting for Di-Di to get old enough to play with, I found two boys from our building to join me. They soon became my best friends, but as I was quickly learning, nothing I liked would stay the same for long.

Baba graduated from the Huang-Poo Military Academy and was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the army. His first assignment was to serve as an instructor in the Artillery Training Command in Du-Yung, a major city in Quay-Chow Province some five hundred kilometers from Chunking. Our family, wanting to stay together, had to move with him. I would be leaving my friends behind.

In the spring of 1939, I got on a bus with Mama, Yeh-Yeh, and Di-Di and rode for three full days to our new home. But Yeh-Yeh would not be staying with us in this new city. He had only been riding with us to make sure our journey was safe, and now he had to return in a day or two to Chunking, where he still worked as the senior editor in the historical commission and carried some new responsibilities in his life.

I had that hunch, but you didn’t believe me, I heard Mama saying to Baba not long before we left Chunking when they learned that Ming was pregnant.

There was nothing I could do to change the situation, Baba replied. Anyway, other than the age difference, I don’t think there is anything wrong with them getting married.

When we arrived in Du-Yung, Mama and Baba started arguing about our new living situation. Baba’s army base was five miles away from us, and he would only be able to come home on Sundays before leaving on Monday morning. With Yeh-Yeh and Ming back in Chunking, Mama would be home alone with Di Di and me most of the time.

I really don’t like Du-Yung and the whole Quay-Chow Province, Mama said.

Why? What is your problem? Baba demanded.

Well, this is the poorest and most uncivilized place to live, she said, and I have this bad feeling about the whole province.

You have only heard people talking about it. You really don’t know if what they say is true. You just have to find out for yourself.

Two days after our arrival in Du-Yung, Mama carried Di-Di and me to the bus station to see Yeh-Yeh off. I hugged my dear grandfather good-bye, and he gently patted my head and bent down to kiss me on my forehead. I felt very sad to see him go, but I didn’t cry. Yeh-Yeh was such a gentle, caring person. Everyone in our family loved him dearly, and he was very fond of me as his first grandson. Our family seemed to be growing smaller all the time.

On the way home, I thought about all the new kids my age I had already seen in the neighborhood and thought I would have a lot of fun playing with them. When we got back, Mama warned me to be extra careful I n this new city.

There are many kidnappers on the street, so you just stay in the backyard, Mama said. Don’t talk to any strangers or take candies from anyone. It is very dangerous.

Yes, Mama. I hear you, I said.

Do you know why kidnappers would come and snatch a kid away? Mama asked.

I shook my head.

They will sell the kid to become a slave, and he will live a very harsh life.

What is a harsh life, Mama?

Well, they don’t have enough to eat, no candies at all, and they must work very hard all day long.

A few days later, I was busy playing hide-and-seek, straw-simulated cockfights, and police chasing bandits with the neighborhood boys in our debris-filled, weed-infested backyard. We had to stay in the back because the narrow stone and rock road in front of the house was too hectic, with the deafening noise from the steel-reamed wheels of the passing animal-driven or manpowered carts. We played the same games in the back of the house over and over and the day seemed very long.

As the afternoon dragged on, I felt hungrier by the moment. I had to run back to the house and look for Mama. Mama, is it time for supper? I asked.

It’s still early. Go out and play some more, Mama answered as she attended to Di-Di and her cooking.

After what seemed a long time later, I came into the house and asked again.

It is only four o’clock, Mama said. We will not eat until six o’clock.

I did not know anything about o’clock, but I tried not to bother Mama too much that afternoon or the following long days. She did not like our first-floor apartment, especially because it didn’t have a kitchen and she had to do her cooking outside the back door under an overhang. But it was hard to feel hungry so much, and I kept my eyes out for extra goodies.

One day, Mama received a bag of dried litchi nut from my Wye Po (maternal grandmother), who lived in the city of Fu-chow in Fujian Province. Mama gave me a few pieces and kept the rest in a jar. They tasted so good and so sweet I went back to the jar to get more as often as I could. Within a few days, the jar was empty. When Baba came home that weekend and discovered the empty jar, he became quite upset.

Son, do you know that stealing is very bad? he roared.

Baba, what is stealing? I could not understand why he was so angry.

Stealing is when you take something without permission. The litchi nut was for your mom to eat because she is still weak from giving birth to your brother. Did you ask Mama for it?

No, I did not ask Mama, I said.

That is stealing, and I must punish you, so you will remember.

Baba grabbed a wooden stick about a foot long. I was very scared of the stick, and that was the first time Baba wanted to punish me.

Show me which hand you used to take the litchi nuts, he ordered.

I extended both hands because I used each one at different times.

He hit both my hands several times. It was very painful, and I cried. Between each smack, Mama handed me a hot towel to dry my tears and clean my face.

I must tell you a story now to help you understand, Baba said, still not happy but not as angry as before he hit my hands. All right?

Yes, Baba, I muttered fearfully.

Many years ago, there was a boy about eighteen years old who did many bad things and was going to be executed by the police, Baba began. My sniffles ceased, and my curiosity took over. "Just before the police shot him, he made a request to talk to his mother. He was granted the request. When the boy got close to his mother, he asked her if he could have a last drink of her milk. His mother agreed.

The boy pretended to suck his mother’s milk, but instead he bit off her nipple. While crying in pain, the mother asked her son why he did this to her. He said to his mother that the reason he was going to be killed today was because she never told him right from wrong and never punished him for the bad things he had done along the years. Son, I want you to remember this story and think about what you are about to do before you do anything in the future.

I did not understand the full meaning of the story, but I did know that I didn’t want to do anything to make Baba hit me again. And I sure didn’t want to do anything to hurt Mama like the boy in that story.

When Baba was away with his troops, Mama would spend special time with Di-Di and me before bedtime. First, she would sing beautiful songs in her Fujian dialect. The soothing tune and words made me feel peaceful and secure, and the songs quickly put Di-Di to sleep. Then Mama would move on to tell a story for me.

One of my favorites was Tiger Aunt, which was about a tiger that was transformed into a beautiful young woman who would lure little boys and girls away from their homes and eat them for dinner. I knew that Mama was telling me that story to remind me not to go off with any strangers. My other favorite was Vicious Stepmother, the story of a boy whose mother died and whose father married a young woman who mistreated the boy. When the stepmother had a child of her own, she treated the boy even more harshly. At dinner, the vicious stepmother would serve her own daughter soup that was thick with noodles, while the boy received only the plain soup without any noodles. He was also whipped to make him perform household chores. At night, he would think of his own mother and cry. Each time Mama told the story, I would be moved to tears out of sympathy for the poor little boy.

Besides cooking three hot meals a day for us, Mama also sewed and knitted all our clothing. She would sometimes visit the other housewives of military officers, but she never joined them for the popular mah-jongg games. She told me that gambling was very bad and that anyone who gambles, drinks, or takes dope could destroy the good life of his or her family.

When Baba came home for short weekend breaks, he would bring many of his associates from the training camp. The house was full of the loud talking and boisterous singing of military songs, just as it had been with Yeh-Yeh’s friends. I loved to run among the guests and try to draw their attention. They liked to poke fun at me for the disproportional size of my high forehead. Baba nicknamed me Big Head and often teased me by singing, Big head, big head, raining is not my fear. While others have umbrella, I have my big head.

I didn’t mind that joke a bit and laughed with Baba and everyone else.

Di-Di and I shared our own small bedroom, but when Baba was away at the base, we slept in the same bed with Mama. I slept at Mama’s feet on her left, while Di-Di slept at the other side of her feet. Mama kept a small tong-oil lamp on the nightstand next to her. The lamp was a small dish-like container with a one-quarter inch-wide channel on one side. Lamp straws were used to burn the lamp oil, with the light intensity adjustable by the number of straws used. To save the tong oil, Mama usually used only one straw, leaving a dim light for us to see if we had to get up in the middle of the night.

One warm summer night, just as I was trying to close my eyes, the flame of the lamp, just a yard from my feet, flickered wildly. Then, up in the air and just outside the bed to my right, I saw the image of an old man with a mustache and goatee floating slightly up and down. I tried to talk to Mama but could not make a sound. I soon fell asleep, but when I awoke, I remembered the image and rushed to Mama to tell her about it.

Mama, I saw Chiang Wei Yuan Tsang floating up and down next to the right of the bed last night! I shouted excitedly.

General Chiang Kai-shek was the head of the Chinese government, and we often referred to him as Chiang Wei Yuan Tsang (chairman of the military commission). I recognized him from seeing his pictures in buildings, on many bulletin boards, and on street walls everywhere.

Don’t say nonsense like that, Mama said sharply. You were just dreaming.

But Mama, I was not dreaming. I saw him, I insisted.

You were falling asleep and thought you saw something, but it was not there. Go out and play, and don’t tell people about your dreams. You hear me?

I nodded my head, but I knew I wasn’t dreaming.

The very next night, the same dreamlike image floated beside me in the air outside our bed just when I was falling to sleep. Again, I was not able to speak or move while I studied it. The next morning, I told Mama again about my experience. But this time, her face turned paper white.

Ren stay here with Di-Di and do not go out of the house. I will be right back, she said abruptly. She had never left the two of us alone before.

Where are you going, Mama? I asked.

I must go to see Baba. I will come back right away. Just stay inside and lock the door.

Uncle Chao-Shun and Jie-Jie

I nodded.

Mama rushed off toward Baba’s base, and I locked the door. Di-Di was sleeping soundly, and I looked out through the window at my friends playing in the backyard. I waited nervously for what seemed like a very long time. Finally, I heard a knock at the door and Mama’s voice telling me to open it.

I told Baba what you saw for two nights in a row, and at first he was quite disturbed, she said. You know that Yeh-Yeh wore a mustache and goatee that made him look much like General Chiang, and we wondered if this image you saw could have been telling you something about your grandfather. But Baba finally just dismissed it all as just the dream of a little boy. We must forget about it now.

The next day, Mama received a telegram for Baba from Ming in Chunking. It stated,

YOUR FATHER IS IN COMA FROM A MASSIVE STROKE CAUSED BY BOMBING. PLEASE HURRY!

The telegram came two days late because it was sent to Du-Yung’s telegram office and had to be hand-delivered to us. The day Yeh-Yeh suffered the massive stroke was the very same day that I first saw the old man floating next to me! Baba was immediately granted a leave, rush to Chunking. Baba’s eyes were bloodshot, and I had never seen him so somber. As he swiftly packed his small suitcase, I wanted to ask him about Yeh-Yeh, but I was afraid he was not in the mood to talk to me. I watched Mama help him fold his shirts and underwear and packed the small suitcase.

Please take care of yourself on the road, she said. Do not worry about us here. Take your time to finish what you need to do, Mama said to him.

I will be fine. What do you think we should do about Ning-Hwa if Ming does not want to keep her? Baba asked, referring to the baby girl born to Yeh-Yeh and Ming. Baba never asked Mama for her opinions, so I knew he must be deeply concerned.

Well, you can bring her back here and we can take care of her. I would not mind a little girl in the house again, Mama said.

Yes, I feel the same way, Baba said. But I also think about the war and my responsibilities. It may not be fair for her to live in places that might be even worse than where they are now. If Ming doesn’t take her along, I think I will send her to that state-funded orphanage for government officials in Chunking. It has a good reputation, and we can always bring her home after the war.

Mama nodded her head in agreement.

Baba took a bus to Quay-Yang, the capital of Quay-Chow Province. With borrowed money, he bought a plane ticket for the earliest flight. With no telephone in our home or anywhere in town, we simply had to wait for news until Baba returned.

That night, I lay in bed, not knowing what had happened to my beloved Yeh-Yeh and feeling frightened and sad. As I closed my eyes while Mama began her story, a fleeting memory of a night back in Nanjing flashed before me. I had been crying nonstop for a long time, until someone held me for a while and handed me to Yeh-Yeh. I felt his beard as he held me in his arms and walked me around a large, dimly lit room. He pointed to many pictures, and in that gentle voice, he told me stories about them. I could not understand what he was saying, but my eyes stuck on the sight of a long sword with a golden hand guard hanging from one wall. I felt so assured and peaceful in the arms of this calm, determined, old soldier that I soon fell asleep.

When Mama finished her story, I asked, Was there a sword hanging from the wall in our house in Nanjing?

There sure was! she said with a look of surprise. That sword was a gift to your Yeh-Yeh from the government to honor his services in the military. It represented bravery and a solid character in a man.

Mama, when we were in Chunking, did Yeh-Yeh tremble sometimes when he held me?

Yes, he would tremble when you were in his arms. But when he was fighting the Chin dynasty, Yeh-Yeh would lead his soldiers through a rain of bullets without any fear. But when that siren sounded to warn us of a Japanese attack, he was just afraid for you. He was trying to protect you from the bombing and did not know where to go to ensure your safety. The public air raid shelters had been bombed and destroyed, you see.

And now a bombing raid on Chunking triggered his stroke, no doubt, as he attended to his new baby girl. I closed my eyes again, and Mama touched my forehead. Listen. You know you are the first grandson, she said. Your Yeh-Yeh loves you more than anything else in this world. His heart is always with you. When he is in distress, he wants to be with you. Maybe that’s why you saw those images. I could feel the moisture of her tears.

Mama is Yeh-Yeh going to heaven now and never coming back, like Jie-Jie and Nai-Nai?

I don’t know yet, but I am afraid so.

Yeh-Yeh had died only hours before Baba arrived at his house. After taking care of the funeral and Yeh-Yeh’s estate, Baba came back about a week later. When he told us about Yeh-Yeh’s passing, the three of us cried together. Mama was relieved when Baba told her that Ming had gone back to her hometown with the baby and that it was arranged by her family for her to marry a middle-aged man in her village. While we were still mourning Yeh-Yeh, Mama told me that during our boat trip from Nanjing to Chunking, it was Yeh-Yeh who had made sure to place a box of my favorite cookies in the desk drawers of all those hotels. For days, I kept thinking of that sword with the golden hand guard hanging on the wall back in Nanjing.

Chapter 3

The Poorest

of the Poor

Baba and Mama set off on foot along a muddy country path not even wide enough for an oxcart, while soldiers from Baba’s new command carried Di-Di and me on their shoulders. Three other sweaty soldiers toted our luggage by bamboo poles under the sweltering summer sun. Cookie! called out Di-Di, who always seemed hungry for snacks. The soldier carrying him pulled out another cookie from the bag Mama had given him. Baba pushed forward ahead of our group and then slowed down to allow Mama to catch up. She was walking as fast as she could while trying not to slip on the clay that was wet from the recent rains.

Let us stop for a rest now, Mama said, and we all sat under a group of trees.

Mama passed around the military canteens with cooled boiled water. It was early summer of 1939 and we were on the move again, now forging ten miles into the countryside from Du-Yung. Baba had been promoted to army captain and assigned the command of an artillery training company near the farming village of Brown Mud Hills. He had insisted we follow the shortcut he had heard about because it would save an hour on the road, even though only the local farmers and their animals used the path.

As we got up and started back down the path, I admired the beauty and serenity of the countryside. How nice it was going to be to live in a place where I didn’t have to worry about kidnappers! And Di-Di and I would have so much space to play in the hills and fields. Back in Du-Yung, Mama had kept Di-Di inside, so all we could do together was throw paper planes or engage in simulated cockfights with straw. I wanted Di-Di to grow up, so Mama would let him come outside with me.

What are those big animals? I asked the soldier carrying me as I pointed to several large, grayish animals in the distant fields.

Oh, those are water buffaloes, he said.

I turned my head toward Di-Di, who was riding on the soldier just behind us. Di-Di, look! Water buffaloes! I said excitedly.

Oh, he replied as he just kept on eating.

As we approached the village, the dirt road changed from gray-black to a brownish yellow. In the distance, I noticed a group of mud piles that looked like houses.

Those are the mud huts the farmers live in, Baba said.

I was relieved that we were not moving into one of them, as we headed instead for a large, wooden house. After we were settled in an apartment in the big house, Baba sent the soldiers back to the company compound, and Mama handed them some money for gratuity. As Mama began unpacking and Di-Di fell instantly to sleep, I looked outside at a few people in torn rags working on the fields. Baba sank into the apartment’s only chair and sipped hot tea between puffs of his cigarette.

Now I believe what they said about these villages outside Du-Yung. This must be the poorest and most backward part of all of Quay-Chow, Mama observed. It is no wonder that people say of Quay-Chow, ‘There are not three sunny days in a year, no plain field wider than a mile, and people have fewer than three pennies to their name.

Well, people here are very poor, for sure. But I am certain it is going to be all right for us. It is just a bit inconvenient. That’s all. Baba tried to calm Mama’s fear.

We all quickly learned why they called it Brown Mud Hills. The oxcart paths, the walkways, the rice paddies, and the exposed hillside that the village partly rested on were all covered with the same yellowish-brown clay. Even the water from the small river winding through the village displayed this same murkiness.

Baba did a study of the water the next day and took us to the river to show us what he found. Villagers were scooping up water with buckets and taking it home because it was the only source of water in the village. Some used a bamboo pole to carry two buckets at once. The water looked like some yucky soup or lightly creamed coffee.

People who drink this water can get ill or even die from it, Baba warned us as he bent to scoop some from the river. He smelled it, took a real close look, and then wiped his fingers on his handkerchief from his pocket. It is badly contaminated, and we must be very careful never to use it without treatment, he said.

Baba began to explain how the river originated in a remote mountain region, collecting water from small streams formed by rain and fountains in the vast wilderness. That water feeding the river contained large amounts of soil particles washed from the riverbanks, as well as germ-carrying contaminants from the waste products and decayed remains of animals and even humans. Baba said that the villagers buried their dead in very shallow graves in the slopes of the small hills. Coyotes and wild dogs would dig out the remains of the dead, eat part of the flesh, and leave the rest to rot. When it rained, those rotted remains, together with germs that caused death, were washed down to the river.

All of the farmers here still drink the water straight from the river because their ancestors have been doing it for thousands of years and they do not know any better, Baba hissed. "But we will