Red Circle: China and Me 1949-2009

By Stephen Songsheng Chen

RED CIRCLE: CHINA AND ME, 1949–2009 tells the fascinating story of Stephen Chen and his family. It sketches the history of the People’s Republic of China, not merely as a backdrop, but as the driving force of the book’s action. RED CIRCLE chronicles the rise and fall and rise again of an extraordinary family. At the same time,

• Language: English
• Publisher: Book Vine Press
• Release date: Nov 20, 2019
• ISBN: 9781951886127

Stephen Songsheng Chen

Professor Stephen Songsheng Chen has achieved great success in leading major U.S. corporations into the surging China and Far East markets, as well as establishing and operating his own companies: Amerihua International Enterprises Inc. & Red Circle Publishing & Cultural Exchange International. He recently published his Red Circle: China and Me, 1949-2009, the first book of its kind to cover the making of modern China through the author's true, fascinating stories. Seeking common ground while respecting differences remains to be Stephen's mission to improve cultural exchanges and mutual understanding among peoples in various countries for a better future of the world. Born in 1939 in Beijing, Stephen Chen grew up in a 120-room mansion that had been the palace of a Qing dynasty aristocrat. He graduated from the Beijing Foreign Languages Institute in 1962. After three years in prison and in a desert labor camp as the son of a labeled Rightist, he was called back to Beijing unexpectedly to become a member of the translation team preparing for the visit of President Nixon in 1972. His colorful business experience began in 1978, when China started its open policy. Stephen, with dozens of colleagues, pioneered the initial development of China International Trust & Investment Corp. (CITIC) which became China's largest investment group and holding company. He and his colleagues negotiated, concluded and implemented many significantly large trading transactions and cooperative programs between China and western companies, such as Beatrice Foods, Xerox, Siemens, SAAB, Lockheed, Renault, Terex, Fiat, and major Hong Kong companies. He also served as an interpreter for China state leaders.

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Copyright © 2019 by Stephen Songsheng Chen.

ISBN Softcover 978-1-951886-10-3

Hardcover 978-1-951886-11-0

Ebook 978-1-951886-12-7

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

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Red Circle Heart jpg

Inscribed by Stephen Songsheng Chen

My beloved parents

Dedicated in loving memory of my parents

Professor Chen Pinzhi

Madame Fu Junying

I have longed to tell my family’s story for many years. My most important goal in publishing Red Circle: China and Me, 1949-2009, in the year of the People’s Republic of China’s 60th anniversary, however, is to enhance understanding of China around the world through recounting the true stories of ordinary Chinese people. It is essential to know China’s history to appreciate where it is today and to create a better future, not only for China, but also for our world.

—Stephen Songsheng Chen

Contents

Prologue Prologue

Chapter 1 Leaving Goose Gate

Chapter 2 Treasures in Troubled Times

Chapter 3 Peiping Liberated

Chapter 4 Birth of a Nation

Chapter 5 Expelled from the Palace

Chapter 6 Answering the Call for Red Capitalists

Chapter 7 The End of the Road

Chapter 8 Labeled an Enemy

Chapter 9 Son of the Criminal

Chapter 10 Bliss and Fear

Chapter 11 The Great Cultural Catastrophe

Chapter 12 Despair, Hope, and Survival

Chapter 13 Fight to Live

Chapter 14 Life after Death

Chapter 15 Flying High and Far

Chapter 16 Great Gains, Great Loss

Chapter 17 Losing Touch

Chapter 18 One Country, Two Systems

Chapter 19 Seeking Serenity

Chapter 20 Taking a New Tack

Chapter 21 Re-emergence

Chapter 22 Atonement

Chapter 23 Deliverance

Epilogue Epilogue

Chapter 24 Returning to Goose Gate

Author’s Note

Iwas 10 years old when, in 1949, the People’s Republic of China was founded. For the next 60 years, my family and I experienced China’s great upheaval, witnessed its suffering and awakening, its despair and hope, and participated in its transformation and the remarkable progress that has brought it to where it stands today. I was and am a part of that history. My life story mirrors that of my country.

As China developed from a woefully backward and impoverished nation into a superpower, the world’s attention has focused on its economy. Little does the world know, however, that during the 1950s, China had already tried its Red Capitalist Road. Since 1979, Deng Xiaoping’s socialism with Chinese characteristics has moved the nation forward along a new capitalist road under the Communist banner. In its long march to achieve a prosperous and harmonious society, China has faced tremendous social disharmonies and unprecedented challenges caused by the unresolved problems of the past and by its startlingly rapid economic growth without fundamental political reform.

I am a survivor who has come through many difficult, even life-threatening, events, campaigns, and persecutions, and I’ve been lucky enough to emerge as one of the pioneers who helped develop the economic ties between the United States and China. As China struggled, so did my family. As China progressed, so did my family. The progress has been remarkable.

Forty years ago, I would have been sentenced to life in a labor camp if I dared to write Red Circle.

Thirty years ago, I would have been placed under house arrest if I dared to write Red Circle.

Twenty years ago, I wouldn’t have been allowed to reenter China if I dared to write Red Circle.

Ten years ago, I would have been spurned in China if I dared to write Red Circle.

Today, in the year of China’s 60th anniversary, I am fortunate and pleased to be able to put Red Circle into your hands, the story of a man, a family, and a nation.

Stephen Songsheng Chen

August 3, 2009, my 70th birthday

Prologue

Leaving Goose Gate

1918-1948

Yanmen Village, Jiyuan County, Henan Province; Peking/Peiping, China

In the early years of the twentieth century, Henan was the poorest province of a thoroughly impoverished country, and Jiyuan was one of its poorest counties, but both were rich in history and legend. The village in which my father lived, Yanmen, lay near Wangwu Mountain, where the legendary first Chinese ancestor, the Yellow Emperor, built the original Temple of Heaven, making it the birthplace of China. Supposedly starting with Laozi himself, who is said to have sojourned there, Wangwu Mountain became the center for Daoism. Emperors of many dynasties made the arduous pilgrimage to this sacred place to offer sacrifices to their ancestors and implore the heavens for a bountiful harvest for the whole land.

Far below the mountain, Yanmen was so desolate that even the songbirds seemed to avoid it. The isolation and stark hardship of life in Yanmen were captured in the village’s name, which translates as Goose Gate. Only wild and foolish geese flew through the high, narrow pass into the desperation of Yanmen.

As far as the eye could see and beyond, the earth was made of a fine, yellow, silty loam called loess. Loess sediment, carried by the mighty Yellow River, gave the river its name. The soil is fertile but erodes easily without vegetation. With no irrigation and in the dry, wind-eroded terrain of Henan, there were vast stretches where nothing grew—no trees, no shrubs or native grasses, not even weeds. Parts of the land were like a desert but without sand or oases.

Deposited by the winds over millions of years, the loess would rise quickly when the winds came up. If the gusts were strong, dust filled the air, the sun disappeared, and darkness descended, separating Yanmen even from the heavens above.

The village had two parts. At the time my father, Weizhen, lived there, upper Yanmen consisted of 10 families who lived in the hills and 20 families who lived in the lower, flatter part of the village. All the families in Yanmen were surnamed Chen, Yue, Liu, or Lee.

My father’s family rented and then bought what natives considered to be some of the poorest land in Yanmen on the parched, terraced slope of a small hill. Ten years earlier, my grandfather, Chen Fayuan, had brought the whole family there from neighboring Shanxi Province to escape widespread famine. They had fled with virtually nothing and over the years carved three large caves into the face of a loess cliff to house the family and their belongings. No one else in the region had three caves in one location. Most families had to satisfy themselves with one small cave, basically a domed room. The arched ceiling provided structural stability to the dwellings, but cave-ins occurred with some regularity. Most dwellings had a built-in oven that served for cooking and heating.

In front of the caves, the Chens had a spacious courtyard with a hard, compacted dirt surface. It was enclosed by a clay wall and, outside the wall, pine, poplar, and persimmon trees grew, irrigated by water from the nearby well. As there were no windows in the cave—the only opening was the main entry—the dwellings were dark and not roomy enough for family gatherings. The courtyard was where all the family— the parents and the four unmarried brothers and three sisters still at home—and other relatives and neighbors could come together. When friends such as Father Clement, a French missionary with whom the family grew close, were passing through, they would always join the Chens for a simple meal and pleasant conversation. Father Clement learned some Chinese words from my father, who learned quite a few French phrases and correct pronunciation from Father Clement. They became close friends.

The most important resource in the high and dry environment of northwest Henan Province was water, and the Chens had it. Before purchasing the property, my grandfather had offered the landlord a higher price if he would include a small adjacent piece of land. It was there that he began to dig for water. His first two tries yielded only occasional trickles, but then he struck a bonanza. The well the family dug in the spring of 1914 near their courtyard was a steady producer of pure and sweet water. Even in times of drought, the well ran full. To this very day, it holds water. The Chens were generous, sharing their good fortune with relatives and neighbors alike, especially their former landlords, the Lius. All called it the sweet well.

Early one morning in the first lunar month of 1918, Weizhen opened the door of his cave with barely a sound and, just as quietly, shut it behind him for what would be the last time in almost five years. The Spring Festival had just passed, and he paused to glance at the occasion’s remnants.

He had written three sayings on red paper and pasted them above and on either side of the main cave’s entry, where my grandparents lived. They were not at all like the scrolls purchased from shops for the occasion and displayed by other villagers. My father took a long, last look at his calligraphy. Even though he was considered a modest lad, he took pride in his free-flowing, strong, and, he thought, bold and elegant characters, which proclaimed:

In the New Year, we enjoy the blessings of our ancestors.

The joyous festival portends eternal spring.

An auspicious star shines on high.

While some might find the sentiments conventional, they stirred Weizhen. During Father Clement’s many visits, my father had learned that Peking University was reforming its courses and would soon offer a modern curriculum. From New Youth magazine, begun by Chen Duxiu, later one of the founders of the Chinese Communist Party, my father had also learned about the New Cultural Movement to modernize his country. He made up his mind that he would walk to the capital, 800 kilometers away; sit for the entrance exam; and, if he passed it, begin to educate himself and, he hoped, play a role in the new China that would join the world beyond its borders.

The short, slender 20-year-old with closely cropped hair, thick eyebrows, and jug-handle ears turned away from his home and made his way across the courtyard. He wore an old sheepskin jacket, tight-fitting cotton trousers, and a pair of homemade cotton boots. He tightened a gray bag across his shoulders and pushed the courtyard gate ajar. He stuck his head out and looked in all directions. Nothing stirred, not even a chicken or a dog. He carefully closed the gate behind him and strode toward his future down the rugged, narrow path toward where the sun would rise within the hour.

To reach the road that would take him to Jiyuan Town and from there to Peking, he had to cross the deep ravine that separated upper and lower Yanmen. Even walking at a quick pace, it would still take more than an hour. In the face of the chill wind, he put his head down and began his journey with a confident stride.

Weizhen! a deep voice suddenly and unexpectedly called out.

Startled, and in the lingering darkness, my father did not immediately recognize the old man squatting in a nook on the leeward side of a ridge. In his old black handmade cotton trousers and jacket, he was barely visible. But when the stooped figure slowly rose and extended two trembling hands, Weizhen cried, Father! He dropped his shoulder bag and stepped forward to support his father. What are you doing here?

The old man pulled his son closer to the sheltering ridge, out of the path of the February wind. I’ve been waiting here for you for nearly two hours.

On such a cold day, what are you…?

I just knew you were going to leave for Peking. I didn’t sleep a wink. When you are troubled, I feel even worse.

I am more excited than troubled. I know my journey won’t be easy. But it will certainly be easier than your bringing our whole family from Shanxi to Yanmen.

You are not going to a poor place like Yanmen. You are going to the capital.

I know. But ‘where there is a will there is a way,’ as you always taught us. The only thing that bothers me is I have to leave you and Mother. I can hardly bear the thought.

We won’t get in your way. Mother and I are happy that you have such bold plans for your education. Who in our family is more deserving? Who in our village? Only you in Yanmen made it to middle school in Jiyuan Town. I have faith in my heart that you will succeed.

While he was talking, the old man undid his waistband and pulled out a small, black leather pouch from deep inside his jacket. Here you are.

What’s this?

The old man gestured for his son to untie the pouch. When my father opened the still warm pouch, he found it filled with large, shiny silver coins.

These 20 silver coins were left by your grandfather. It was his life savings. I buried them under the oldest persimmon tree outside our courtyard. During the worst time of floods and famine, of drought and the plague of locusts, no matter how much trouble our household was in, I didn’t touch it. This is what our Chen family ancestors bequeath to you. Take it. On the long road to Peking, you must have money for the journey.

Father, I can’t take this! I’ll work as I make my way to the capital. I’ll do odd jobs for people. Don’t worry; I’ll be able to earn enough to get there.

But what will you do when you get to Peking? You don’t know the city or what life is like there. You don’t know the people, and you won’t have any relatives to rely on. With this money from your forefathers, you might be able to stand on your own two feet and start a new life.

My father clasped the pouch tightly to his breast, fell to his knees before the old man, clutched him, and began to weep. Then as the sun broke over the mountains, its beams began to pierce the morning haze, bathing the two in soft sunlight.

Son, don’t cry. The old man pulled his son to his feet and brushed the dust from his pant legs. Come on, if you cry now, what will you do later? Always remember, if things are going well, keep fighting your way forward. If things don’t go well, you can come home. Yanmen is always your home! Our little village, it made you, didn’t it? Your roots lie here.

Despite his admonishment to his son, the old man’s voice became hoarse and he failed to stop several hot tears from falling down his cheeks. He tightened his grip on his son’s hands.

My father thought about his roots and the hard physical work that was such a part of life in Yanmen. He remembered how his family had cleared the land, dug wells, planted crops and trees, carved caves, and sunk their homes into the earth. Life was a struggle, always on the edge. Any harsh act of Nature could push the Chen family to the brink of disaster. Living close to the edge had honed my father’s desire to branch and flower beyond his roots.

I know that, Father, but if I don’t make something of myself in Peking, I would have a hard time coming back and facing you. Still holding the old man’s hands tightly, my father used his hands to wipe the tears from his cheeks.

Aim high, think big, and take your first step without hesitation. Always have hope. The old man gave the young man’s hands one last squeeze. Time is wasting; you should get on the road. The old man stooped down to pick up the bag and put it over my father’s shoulder. Keep the money safe.

My father put the little leather pouch into his jacket, close to his chest, and looked at the old man, unable to bring himself to leave. Father, I didn’t dare to talk about leaving with Mother. I was worried it would hurt her too much. Would you comfort her and make sure you two look after yourselves?

We will. Don’t worry. Go on, you should get going. The old man nodded and waved awkwardly, his hand close to his heart.

My father turned around and took a few hesitant steps before turning again and saying, Father, I can’t take all of this money. How about I just take half?

So what would I do with the rest? Put it back under the persimmon tree? Money is something that you do not bring with you when you are born and you won’t take with you when you die. It is to be used where and when it is needed most, Son. In the capital city, let these silver coins help you to make something of yourself. In ten years time, you’ll be able to bring Mother and me to celebrate the New Year with you in Peking.

My father stepped forward and again took his father’s hands into his own. I sure hope that I’ll be able to bring you and Mother much sooner than that.

I’ll look forward to that day! Come now, it’s getting late, you should get on your way.

Yes, Father, I guess I’d better be going, he said, forcing a smile but not wanting to release the old man’s hands. Looking deeply into his father’s eyes, he finally let go, backed up a few steps, bowed deeply, and then turned and strode away.

The morning sun seemed to have risen quickly. Thousands of rays of light passed through unusually red clouds, casting a glow on the earth and the old man. When my father next turned to look, his father was a distant figure but appeared somehow to be standing straighter, taller.

My father walked on. Ahead, the rising sun shone full on the long, narrow mountain pass he needed to cross. He took one last look at Yanmen, at his father. He could barely make out the old man standing on the ridgeline far below. But by squinting and looking hard he could still see his father slowly waving his right hand in the morning sun, in the rosy light that fell through the morning’s remarkable red clouds.

It took my father over two weeks to travel the 800 kilometers from Yanmen to Peking, hitching an occasional ride on a passing cart and doing odd jobs along the way in return for food and lodging. He could have taken the train, but wanting to save every bit of money he could, he walked. His only expense for the trip was buying two pair of cloth shoes from a street peddler to replace the ones he wore out.

After his journey, my father entered Peking through the Yongdingmen Gate. (This magnificent and imposing structure was built in 1553, torn down in 1958, and its replica constructed on the same site in 2004.) He found a small inn in the Tianqiao area, which had only one wide bed for all its guests. Late on his second day in the city, quite by accident, he found the Preparatory French School. Father Clement had told him he must attend it before he could be admitted to the University. With his heavy Henan accent and ragged clothes, my father was almost rejected at first sight. However, Father Clement’s patient tutoring and my father’s diligent study paid off. His accurate French pronunciation astonished the examiners, and he was admitted.

When he filled in the registration form, my father changed his first name from Weizhen to Pinzhi to signify a new beginning to his great expectations. Adding to one’s name was not unusual, especially for intellectuals. Traditionally in China, all first names have a meaning. Weizhen meant containing treasure. Pinzhi, a very literary name, was harder to interpret. I didn’t ask my father but rather learned its meaning from Mr. Sun, a close friend of my father who was also my tutor. Pinzhi means an invitation to accomplish great achievements. Mr. Sun told me that when he and my father attended the same school not far from Yanmen, he could already predict that my father was destined for lofty things.

My father was a natural and devoted student, full of curiosity and high ideals. His first year in Peking passed quickly. Aside from his studies and part-time work as a classical Chinese tutor, he cared deeply about helping to build his nation. He saw the need for educating the masses, emancipating women, securing individual freedoms, and promoting science and democracy. Only then could China break the chains of imperialism, stand strong, and join the modern world on equal footing. To work toward these goals, as soon as he got into Peking University he joined the New Culture Movement that he had first learned about in Yanmen.

Sunday, May 4, 1919 began bright and early for my father and turned out to be the dawning of a new age in China, a red dawn. That morning he arose with the sun and finished work on three large protest signs he had volunteered to prepare. His bold calligraphy read: Don’t sign the Treaty of Versailles, Struggle for sovereignty externally. Get rid of traitors at home, and No more imperialism.

Once he had washed his brushes, he hurried to join his fellow students from Peking University and a dozen other universities in a meeting. He was eager to see what steps the protest would take next. The gathering combined youth and nationalism for the first time in China’s history. The sparks that kindled such revolutionary and nationalistic fires in China began with the terms of the Treaty of Versailles, which ended World War I.

Despite its stated goals of advancing democracy and self-determination, the Paris Peace Conference awarded China’s resource-rich Tsingtao region on the Shandong Peninsula—formerly a German leasehold—to the Japanese. This was bad enough, but then it was learned that the Chinese government had already given the Japanese rights to the area in exchange for a large loan.

When news of this treachery reached China, the students were outraged at their spineless and corrupt government, at the hypocritical and double-dealing Western powers, and at imperialistic Japan. After meeting and drafting resolutions and a manifesto, more than 3,000 students assembled in Tiananmen Square to demonstrate. My father was filled with feelings of strength, pride, and confidence. He had never felt such energy before. It was electric as it surged through the crowd. He felt like a true pioneer helping to take his country where it had never been before.

The students waved their banners, flags, and placards. They shouted slogans and cheered their leaders. In vain, the police chief and education minister pleaded with the students to disperse. Speakers brought the crowd to a frenzy, reserving their harshest words for the Chinese officials who had collaborated with the Japanese. Especially reviled was Communications Minister Cao Rulin, one of the Cabinet’s leaders. The crowd called for all of the collaborators to be sacked and the treaty to be rejected.

En masse, the students then moved to the capital’s diplomatic quarter, where they submitted petitions to the legations of the great Western powers, but the demonstrators were not through yet. Amidst cries of On to the traitor’s house, they marched to Cao Rulin’s compound on nearby Zhaojialou Lane. The militia and police assembled there tried and failed to protect the residence.

My father was short and thin but strong and nimble. He was one of the first half-dozen students who climbed over the residence wall and opened the main gate, allowing the crowd to pour into the compound. They used bamboo poles to knock off roof tiles and break windows, through which they entered the house.

Cao Rulin had escaped, but inside the students found Zhang Zongxiang, Minister Plenipotentiary to Japan, who had been involved in turning over Tsingtao. They took him outside and roundly beat him. Then in their calculated rage, the students methodically sacked and burned the place. During the melee, more than 30 protestors were arrested and imprisoned. As dusk descended and the flames began to die down, the troops and civil authorities finally restored order and the crowd disbanded.

A slow drizzle fell from the darkening sky, and occasional gusts buffeted my father as he returned to the boarding house where he lived. Despite the wind, the smell of smoke was strong all the way home. It permeated his hair and clothes and filled his nostrils.

May 4 was the most exhausting and exhilarating day of his life. Although he had no way of knowing how quickly and how far the unrest would spread throughout the rest of China, he had played a role in setting in motion the greatest social, political, and cultural change his country had yet seen. Without undressing, he lay down on his bed and fell asleep immediately.

It was at the boarding house that my father met his wife-to-be, Fu Junying, my mother. She had been born into a very poor family near Baoding in Hebei Province. Along with her two younger sisters and a brother, my mother had come to Peking with their father, who was the chef in the boarding house that served as dormitory and dining hall for many college students. The sisters helped in the kitchen and cleaned up after meals. My mother was just 15 years old when my father met her and had blossomed into such a beauty that every boarder gazed on her with admiration, some with lust.

For her part, my mother saved her shy glances for my father, the poorest boarder in the house and 10 years her senior. My father always arrived late for meals, entering only after the other students had left and my mother had already started cleaning up, so that they could be alone together. For a long time, they never spoke to each other, communicating only through their eyes and smiles. They felt an immediate attraction, a powerful connection, a non-verbal meeting of minds that grew into profound love. They had so much in common, including their poverty, their simplicity, and their hunger for a better life.

My mother and father wed in 1923. Within a year, my father graduated from Peking University, began teaching French language and literature, and fathered a son. As a poorly paid beginning lecturer, he had to take as many jobs as possible to provide for his growing family. He bought a German-made bicycle to travel between his four different university posts, two middle-school positions, and one tutoring job with an autistic adolescent. Each day, he commuted up to four hours between his various places of employment, returning home each evening exhausted. By 1929, my parents had saved enough money to buy and thoroughly renovate a small house for a very low price, a dilapidated wreck in a good neighborhood on the east side of the newly renamed Peiping. Three sons and a daughter were then part of the family, so the move to larger quarters was timely.

After 10 years of teaching and translating writers such as Anatole France and Madame de Lafayette, my father had established himself as a leading intellectual, inspiring teacher, and distinguished professor at the Sino-French University. During his summer vacation of 1935, he produced China’s first bilingual French textbooks. With my mother’s full support, he sequestered himself in a small room at the Auguste Comte Middle School, a part of his university. For two months, my father never went home, never even left the school grounds. His only outdoor activities were running in the playground and bathing in the outdoor bath. Twice a day, my mother sent a meal over. Otherwise he worked day and night writing and compiling his magnum opus. Before the vacation ended, piles of his manuscript filled the desks of his editors at the university press.

The three volumes of La Langue Françoise were published in 1936 and quickly became widely used by universities and middle schools throughout China. His productive tenure in the ivory tower, however, was soon to end. China was on the verge of a long, cruel, and costly war with Japan that would turn out to be the largest Asian war of the 20th century. Suffering through eight years of brutal attack and occupation, 35 million Chinese lost their lives.

On July 7, 1937, officers of Japan’s Guandong Army manufactured an incident outside of Peiping at the Marco Polo Bridge. This ploy was part of their well-designed plan to launch an all-out invasion of China. They took Peiping the next day, and, with the arrival of reinforcements from Manchuria, easily occupied the entire region. Nine days later, Chiang Kai-shek announced that China was at war with Japan to the finish. China’s struggle for national survival had begun.

Not long after, my father suffered a deep personal tragedy. His mother, still in Yanmen, broke down from her constant overwork. By August, she was dead. My father brought my grandfather to Peiping before the situation in our occupied hometown deteriorated.

Unwilling to teach in universities and schools controlled by the Japanese, my father resigned all his academic positions and looked for other employment. After extended conversations with my mother, my father joined professors from Peking University, Tsinghua University, and Nankai University intending to travel to Kunming, Yunnan Province, to join the Southwest United University, which was formed in April 1938. My father made the long, tough journey all the way to Hong Kong and then by boat to Vietnam, but never got as far as Kunming. When he learned of my mother’s illness, he returned home, jobless.

In an instant, our family was in uncomfortable financial straits. To raise money, my father even sold the copyright to his textbooks. My parents decided to move out of our newly renovated house and rent it to a German family. With the half-year rental deposit, the copyright sale, and years of savings, my parents entered the real estate business.

During the war with Japan, refugees flooded Peiping and were eager to buy inexpensive homes. My father’s creative approach was to buy old, even collapsed and deserted houses at low prices, restore them to decent condition, and sell them at reasonable prices. In order to start his venture, he needed a trustworthy construction team. At this critical moment, my father met Uncle Lee. From the beginning, they talked with each other like old friends. Uncle Lee, 12 years younger than my father, was from a poor village in Miyun, a county to the north of Peiping. Their village and Shilipu Township nearby didn’t produce many agricultural products, but they did produce many skilfull handymen, carpenters, and masons. My father explained his idea and the tenuous financial condition he was in to Uncle Lee. Uncle Lee told my father that his men would be pleased with only room and board to start the venture. All wages could be paid after my father sold the first renovated house. This generous offer significantly reduced my father’s initial cash investment and started the ball rolling.

Uncle Lee’s team made the first old house that my parents bought into a residence for the workers. My parents’ first foray into real estate, a business with which they were almost totally unfamiliar, became a very prosperous model. Uncle Lee also helped to obtain raw materials from his hometown where they were cheaper than what was generally available. It turned out that my father’s first renovation job was completed much better, faster, and cheaper than he expected, and the house quickly sold for much more than he expected. When Uncle Lee and his workers received their first lump-sum cash payment in big red envelopes at the end of the year, it took them a long time to count out all the bank notes.

A sound concept, savvy strategy, and good friends enabled my father to soon become the most competitive builder in Peiping’s housing market. At first, their main customers were relatives, friends, and university colleagues, but soon new customers were attracted by affordable prices for good quality residences in safe areas. Business boomed. At its peak in the mid to late 1940s, the family business sold dozens of houses monthly and had many others under reconstruction in inventory. It was one of the largest realties in town.

When I, the youngest son, was born on August 3, 1939, however, my parents were still a poor couple. Overjoyed to have such a fine boy—and so big—they were also disappointed that they couldn’t afford the traditional first-month birthday party for me. However, my father was pleased that he found a very good name for me, Songsheng. Song means high and mountain and sheng means born. Song is the first word of Songzhusi Hutong, where we lived at the time. More importantly, it is also the name of Mount Song in Henan Province, one of China’s five sacred peaks. There the Shaolin Temple and almost 250 pagodas are located amidst such a remarkable landscape that Mt. Song has been designated as a UNESCO International Geological Park.

My parents believed very strongly that my birth was an auspicious sign for the family’s prosperity. The casting of my bazi, or birth chart, was most propitious. In the Chinese lunar calendar, 1939 was the year of the rabbit. I was born exactly at 2:00 PM and weighed nine pounds even. These factors, my astrological determinants, and the eight characters that marked my birth all indicated that I would have a most fortunate lot in life and that my birth foretold a turning point in the family fortunes.

Those beliefs quickly began to be realized as, even under Japanese occupation, my parents’ business flourished. A Japanese general took a fancy to our much-beloved home along the moat on the east side of the Forbidden City. He forced my parents to sell it to him and gave them an extravagant sum as a display of his wealth. My parents used the proceeds and their savings to purchase the former residence of a Manchu aristocrat, a relative of China’s last emperor, Puyi. Although completely dilapidated, it was the largest palace in Peiping in private hands: 120 rooms, seven courtyards, and extensive gardens. Late in the fall of 1941, my father toured the palace for the first time with the broker and Uncle Lee. It was literally breathtaking. The place had been abandoned after the downfall of the Qing dynasty and had become a flophouse for transients and worse. The stench from human excrement and urine so befouled the air that breathing was difficult at times. The prince’s palace had turned into the proverbial den of iniquity. Prostitutes and drug dealers openly plied their trades. In the huge parlor, about 20 people sprawled on the floor, smoking opium and taking other drugs. Off to the far side, several young men attacked an older man, who from the sounds of things owed them money for drugs. They kicked at him as he writhed on the floor. Before my father could try to intervene, the broker steered him and Uncle Lee out of the parlor and further into the decayed remains of the once magnificent palace.

The gardens had also been ruined by neglect. They were thick with weeds, and the stark limbs of dead trees stood out across the landscape. The only building in the garden, a large complex with several adjoining rooms, was almost completely collapsed. Even the addicts and derelicts kept their distance from this dangerous structure.

Despite his own doubts and against the advice of his friends and family, my father finally told the prince’s broker that he would pay the asking price but only if all the people staying in the palace were relocated within one month. Once the sale was final, my father invited architects from the Imperial Museum to advise his design team. One major challenge was maintaining the integrity of the prince’s palace while outfitting it with modern facilities and equipment. The heating system and bathrooms, for instance, were imported from Europe. It took two full years for him and his workers to rebuild the palace.

My grandfather, even shorter and thinner in his old age than in his Yanmen days, spent all his time at the various construction projects with me and the other children of the household. We collected nails and wood shavings and scraps into baskets and performed other tasks. Used nails were hammered straight and the wood was carried to the kitchen to cook the workers’ meals. We ate while chatting happily with the workers. Many of them didn’t even know that this old man was the father of their boss.

What I liked best of all about living in the palace was playing in the gardens. My father lovingly restored and expanded them, turning the huge garden space into two parts. The front was landscaped elaborately and imaginatively. The back became a large vegetable garden called the kale yard. At one edge was a manual windlass to draw water from a newly excavated well for irrigation. My father dug it shortly after we moved in. It reminded him of the well at home, of the sweet water that had been the source of our family’s good fortune in Yanmen.

A good-sized building was located between the two gardens, which my father named Xanadu from Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s poem. The poem was inspired by Marco Polo’s description of Shangdu and Kublai Khan’s summer palace. My father’s Xanadu consisted of two halls, a study, a suite of eight adjoining rooms, and a basement. Here my cousins and I had our very own pre-school and could play in bad weather.

A small stream and pond spanned by a stone bridge were my favorite part of the front garden. Ornamental flower parterres guarded the entrance to Xanadu. Throughout the compound stood seven stately jujube trees, the date-like native of China. Along the high walls of one side of the garden was a stand of bamboo and an amphitheater for performances.

My family cultivated a wide variety of vegetables in the back garden. I learned how to prepare the soil, plant seeds, draw water from the well, weed, and harvest. After calluses appeared on my little hands, I had a greater appreciation of the children’s poem, Farmers weeding at noon, Sweat down the field soon. Who knows food on a tray, thanks to their toiling day? Lots of food, much of it home grown, graced our dining table. There were never any leftovers. We shared the vast amounts of food produced in our garden with family and friends, even strangers.

After one year in the kindergarten, I went to primary school in 1944 when I was five years old. Two years later, I was transferred from Auguste Comte Primary School to a missionary school, Yuying Primary School. It was a very nice and also a very expensive school. I still remember how Old Zhu, our pedicab driver, had to put two big bags of the fast-depreciating banknotes in the pedicab to take my mother and me to the school to pay my fees. I started learning English and got my English first name, Stephen, from a kind woman teacher. She gave all her students English first names that started with the same letter as their Chinese first names. She told me she chose Stephen for me from the Bible. I’m glad I didn’t learn until later that Stephen was stoned to death.

I spent most of my time after school in the gardens. I often played in or near the stream and pond and learned how to swim there without my mother ever learning of my derring-do. I loved the seven jujube trees. I often got stomach pains and the runs from eating too many dates. They were so good, I just couldn’t stop myself. I was an excellent climber and the only one in the family who could reach the sweetest dates remaining on the highest branches after harvest. If the jujubes fell by themselves or were shaken from tree branches, most would break. I always saved those especially sweet whole dates for my parents; for Nanna Ma, my former wet nurse; and, most importantly, for my favorite playmate, Lifen.

With my schoolmates, I enjoyed playing field hockey on the palace’s broad grass field. Just before the end of summer vacation, all the parents and close family friends would be invited to the championship games and an outdoor barbecue afterward. The happiest years of my life were the carefree times in the palace. Neither the occupation by Japan nor the fierce civil war that tore the country apart afterward spoiled the joy of childhood for me.

My grandfather died in the summer of 1943. I was heartbroken at his death, but it ended months of bedridden misery and several unsuccessful surgeries. Whenever the old man had felt well enough, he loved to have me sit close to him on his bed. He would tell me story after story about Yanmen village and Wangwu Mountain. My favorite was about the Mountain of the Temple of Heaven. Emperors of the Ming and Qing dynasties so disliked making the arduous pilgrimage to Wangwu Mountain that they built their own Temple of Heaven in Beijing.

Another of Grandfather’s stories that I loved was The Foolish Old Man Who Removed Mountains. The Foolish Old Man didn’t like that the Wangwu and Taihang mountains obstructed his way and decided that he and his sons would begin removing them. The Wise Old Man told him that he could never complete the job. To this day, I remember every word of the Foolish Old Man’s retort: You are so conceited that you are blind to reason. Even a widow and a child know better than you. When I die, there will be my sons, who will have their sons and grandsons. Those grandsons will have their sons and grandsons, and so on to infinity. But the mountains will not grow. Why is it impossible to level them?—to which the Wise Old Man had no reply. It was clear from the way that Grandfather told the story that he admired perseverance.

The day of the funeral was a sad but exciting one for me. The ceremony had created quite a