My father, as an older generation of “returnees”, will always be a little out of fashion in my mind. He was one of the group of people who studied in the United States after World War II and rushed back in 1949 to join the construction of new China. When I was young, I always saw him sitting at his desk writing, and sometimes he would stop and pull the ruler twice, and then continue writing again. At that Time, there was no calculator, and the ruler was quite “foreign” compared to the abacus.
In my eyes, there was nothing “foreign” about our Home, from the way we lived to the appliances we used, and it was rather simple to make do, as if there were always something more important to do, and we could just deal with it. So I often teased later, our Family, how like our country?
The few foreign goods in the house, there is a jukebox and a lot of records. My father is a very old-fashioned person, although he is very kind to people, but he does not want to share things with others, is not just take out. He did not discipline people, and never hit me, angry at best just ignore people. But his face does not speak is still quite scary, the atmosphere in the house will become very tense. When he doesn’t talk, you can’t understand what’s going on. If it is so dull for several days in a row, it will be more difficult for everyone. So we don’t make a fuss with him when he doesn’t give us anything to move. I remember seeing this jukebox only twice, when my great aunt and uncle came from Shanghai to play. She was German and had spent a lot of time in Sichuan after marrying in China, spoke Chinese with an official Sichuan accent, and liked to walk in the woods behind our building. Dad brought out a jukebox I had never seen before and they listened to Music while drinking coffee. I ran to watch the fun, and my great aunt put her finger in front of her pouting mouth, signaling me not to make a sound. I found this jukebox very interesting, when playing the record is not to listen to one side and then turn over that kind of, but will be a set of pieces together, until the needle goes through the side to the center, will automatically lift up, then there is a device from the bottom to the top, the top one will slide to the side, the needle back down to put down a record. After listening to all the A-side and then turn it over to listen to the B-side. There was such a fun thing in the house, but I never saw my dad use it. They sit quietly next to this machine to listen to music, as serious as going to a concert hall to hear people play. As I watched the delicate machinery scratching round and round on the record covered with mysterious patterns, I wondered: what else was Dad hiding that he didn’t show me?
I don’t know why Dad is so cautious, but he actually turned on the jukebox there, playing classical music all day long, like a background sound to smoke us, it won’t matter. For us kids, there are a lot of fun things to do – sticky dragonflies, catching seasonal birds, playing gun battles, swimming in the summer, ice bikes in winter, not to get carried away by this invisible and untouchable sound. Classical music, not to mention the influence of this cultivation, even if you force children to learn the hard work, but also may not be able to learn a kind. Things bought not used, it is better not to have.
Once the Cultural Revolution started, my father’s records were disposed of on his own before anyone came to raid his home. When I saw the boxes and boxes of Peking Opera records that were cleared out together with the foreign records, I realized that all of my dad’s stuff was for my grandfather’s entertainment, and I heard that my grandfather loved to listen to opera when he was alive. Grandpa died before I was born, so I guess there are some things that have been pressed under the box and no one has touched them. I’m not interested in those old records of 100 generations of triumphs, but there are plenty of curiosities, old clothes, old jewelry, and old bills with frighteningly large denominations. Grandma’s wedding pair of cannons made us excited for a long time, as big as a small rolling pin, I really wanted to light it up to hear the sound, but hesitated for many times, but still did not dare. Enough chaos, in case something blows up can be bad.
The things copied from other families can be very powerful, Tsinghua held a “copied family exhibition”, there are Nationalist Qingtianbaiji flag, Japanese military swords, Beiyang military uniforms, Qing Dynasty uniforms, land deeds, letters of appointment, letters, such as Gold and silver jewelry, records, perfume and other things that indicate the lifestyle of the feudal bourgeoisie, no one wants to see. If only this exhibition could be preserved, it would be a museum of the social development of modern China.
It might not be accurate to say that all the famous figures in modern Chinese history have descendants in Tsinghua, but it would be easy for me to cite a few examples of prominent figures. Like Zeng Guofan, Li Hongzhang, Kang Youwei, Liang Qichao, Feng Yuxiang, Duan Qirui …… and so on, some of these people’s descendants I just know, some are seen from afar, and some are together every day. The famous historian Qian Mu’s grandson lived in our unit on the fifth floor, when he was still in elementary school, he used a taut bow to play ki birds (robins) often without missing a shot. One day we were playing in front of the building, another child two years older than him said to him: Do you know, your grandfather is the big reactionary named in Mao’s election! Although it is said that children’s words are innocent, more or less reflects the influence of Parents on children intentionally or unintentionally. Not to mention the fact that there was no school and no books to read, but nowadays you can see the master of national studies Qian Mu everywhere in the newspapers and bookstores, ask how many elementary school students know who Qian Mu is? But cruel and absurd things are happening every day, we play as usual. On the second floor, Mrs. Zhu was afraid that we would kill a rose in front of the building, but later we learned that Mr. Zhu Ziqing planted it with her when he was alive. The old people of the previous dynasty to save a little something to stay a little memory, is already quite a sad thing, but to the class struggle point of view at the time, these are the remnants of the Kuomintang reactionary faction trying to overthrow the regime of proof. Tsinghua place is commonly known as: the treasure of Tianhua, the people of the place; with the big criticism of the language is called: the temple is small gods big, shallow pool Wang Bajie more.
As far as I remember, my father hadn’t suffered much at the beginning of the Cultural Revolution. What I saw with my own eyes was just a dozen young teachers and experimenters from their department came to my house, one of them was the New Year’s Gala was to take me to play. I ran up to call him, but he ignored me, was a little overwhelmed. They put a big poster on my door, which read “Wang Mianxuan, the filial son of the landlord bourgeoisie and virtuous grandson. I was in third grade at the time, and I didn’t understand these trendy words, but at least I knew it wasn’t good.
What really amazed me was another foreign item in our house: a radio.
This radio was brought back by my father from the United States, and it looked very ugly. Because it was used by the U.S. Army in World War II, the tin casing was olive green in color, and the side was painted white with “P.H. Wang”, the old-fashioned initials of my father’s English name. Unlike others, the casing is the kind of wood, no beautiful rubber wood knobs, bare, what decorative sense all without. Dad said this military radio is good quality, high sensitivity, can receive shortwave, the past when not disassembled accessory device can also be used as a transceiver, but also stressed that the return into the customs when filling out the official declaration form. As long as I can remember, this thing is placed on the top of the glass cabinet, as usual, just like the U.S. Army blanket at home, not a secret, used every day. The yellow-green blanket, a military material disposed of after World War II, we sometimes put it on the top, sometimes take it underneath, except for the corner of the blanket with the US mark, who would pay attention to where it came from? Every day at noon we listened to “Forest and Snow” and “Red Flag”, maybe we spent more time with the radio than Dad. The warmth and softness of the tin box, which was the size of a shoe box, shone on the panel of the radio. The comic songs of Hou Baolin and Guo Qiru, the stories of Sun Jingxiu, and the unforgettable crisp sound of the “trumpet” became very fond memories of our peaceful Life in our early childhood.
My father’s radio suddenly became an incriminating evidence in the campaign to clean up the class ranks at the end of June 8, when it was revealed that my family was hiding a transmitter!
It was just after the martial arts struggle, the rural people went to the brigade, the school also resumed, everything is like tossing and turning tired to take a break when such a plaything was found, how can not let people excited? Who would have thought that my father, who is usually a quiet, peaceful and kind person, who knows nothing else but studying and learning, had a telegraph! The news, I guess, has taught many people adrenaline overload, right?
The night of the raid, the atmosphere was particularly different, the house was turned into a mess, but it was surprisingly quiet. All of them are sullenly turning over there, and usually have to call aunts and uncles when they see each other, but now no one is ignoring me. Dad’s room suddenly shone brightly. That room is not very bright during the day, from the balcony shrunken a large part of the front of another building blocked, the angle of daylight is very small. At night, a 15-watt light bulb was only enough to light up the place where my father sat. After the Cultural Revolution, the house became smaller and smaller, and in addition to the bed, there was a walkway left, which made it even darker. Anyway, in those days, we didn’t study, the outside world was busy, and we kids loved to stay outside, and came home to eat and sleep. Since the shared family moved in, Dad always closed the door, even on hot days, as if the world was peaceful with the door closed. Now the disaster from heaven, a large bare bulb without a lampshade hanging in the middle of the house, I do not know whether it is my heart’s illusion, or someone specially changed the light bulb for this unusual moment, it looks a hundred watts.
The language of the great criticism in those days was very graphic, and it was often heard: to bring out x x x, to expose his counter-revolutionary crimes in broad daylight. This time my father’s messy stuff was really “exposed in broad daylight”! Even the letters my mother wrote to my father 20 years ago were copied out. Then again, those who copied the home is also very hard to find something which is so easy, those stacked boxes one by one to open, more tired than the seasonal mucking clothes. Turn the table and open the drawers also trouble, written pieces of paper, letters piled up everywhere, can not open. Not to mention outsiders, is the master himself are afraid to clean up, let alone so blind guessing. In fact, they want to find that I heard that the transceiver device has been dismantled, as long as the discovery of this part, the charge of secret agent even if it is true.
I just started my first year, it is the most curious time. When I saw what happened at home, I was surprised and excited, and I was anxious to see what was going on. However, the house is full of people inside and outside, waiting for half a day and finally fell asleep. How they left, I do not know at all. I’m not sure what was found. Is there something like a “secret code”? They took the radio, because it was obvious that the original place was empty and only dust remained.
For the next few months, Dad was under daily scrutiny. Many times he saw a man and a woman, two young teachers from his unit, taking him home. Perhaps the arrangement to send my dad home every day was because he was worried about overplaying his hand and making some kind of accident? Although there is no deterrent ceremony of the dictatorship, nor the appearance of the uniform with the line, the days of being forced to write an account every day must be very difficult. Dad rarely spoke, and it was clear that he was not in a good mood. Honestly, there are people who are unlucky than him, at least he can still go home every day. But this is not the same as saying that the problem is not serious enough, in that period of time, there have been a lot of people who can not think and find a suicide, our building has two teachers jumped to their deaths. The back of the building was where we used to play, playing kick the pot telegraph (hide-and-seek), stepping on the fort, breaking into the game, and when it was lively could gather dozens of children to play games. Now dead, no one dares to go, to grow half a person high weeds, Yang woods inside a small wind blowing, is in the sunny days, listen to the sound is always like in the rain, eerie. It is said that after a year there is a piece of the brain of the deceased dried on the ground.
It was especially cold in 1969.
My brother and sister all went to the army, one in northern Shaanxi and one in Inner Mongolia. In the summer, my mother took the initiative to sign up for the first group of people to go to the May 7 Cadre School in Liyu Zhou, Jiangxi. According to her estimation, it was impossible for the family not to go to the countryside and stay in the city, so she might as well go to the cadre school first. Although Dad’s review had been completed, she didn’t know how to arrange a job for him yet, and if someone in the family had already gone to the cadre school, maybe he could stay in Beijing. In case the whole family had to go, she first adapted to the situation in the countryside, so that in the future there would be a catch, not to be caught off guard. Soon, Dad was sent to a factory in the suburbs of Beijing for labor training, and only came back once a week. Fortunately, there was still an old nanny left to take care of the family’s life, and although everyone went their own way, the family in Beijing was finally saved. I began to sleep alone in one room, and had the luxury of lying on my father’s double bed, where I could hear my own breathing in the moonlight and the silence of the room, worrying about getting up in the middle of the night to relieve myself and running to the toilet over and over again, always struggling to figure out which was the last time I peed before going to bed.
Like most teenagers, I wanted to be a welcome member of the community. In my life, the importance of family was being replaced by society. I gradually fell into confusion about the real world. My circle of friends began to extend beyond the same building residential area to meet kids from the sports academy and students from the surrounding rural areas. I wanted to be praised, and I even wanted to join the Red Guards. The Red Guards at that time were not at all what the Cultural Revolution meant in terms of rebel groups, but were actually the equivalent of the Pioneer Youth League, an honor awarded to obedient children by the school authorities, only with a different name. I was not developed in two successive batches, which was nothing to fuss about. I loved to talk, I didn’t pay attention to lectures, and I never did anything outstanding especially in labor. Until one time, my friend, who was usually quite good with me, suddenly told me that the teacher of their class would not let him play with me anymore, saying that I was the son of a secret agent. If he wanted to join the Red Guards, he should draw a clear line with me. I believe he spoke all the truth, his family in the gymnasium, will not know too much about the Tsinghua matter. I must not have expected my reaction to be so violent, but of course my anger was directed at the female teacher, but when I got anxious, I didn’t even know what to say to him. As if I really hid something too big to tell him, but how can I say it? My father studied in America, and we have an ugly American radio in our house? If it’s that simple, then why do people say your dad is a secret agent? Once on the way from school, a kid I was playing with asked me: Hey, I heard you have a transmitter at home? Your mother! I said back, your family has a telegraph! He said, “I’m just asking, don’t be anxious. How can I not be anxious? Suddenly it felt like there was a huge conspiracy surrounding me, our family. I was engulfed, but I couldn’t tell what it was yet.
No matter what, I had to reason with that teacher! It’s okay if the kids don’t understand, but who is she to say my dad is a secret agent? The teacher has to be responsible for what she says, right? Yes, my father studied in the United States, but didn’t he come back as soon as the new China was founded? If he wasn’t patriotic, why would he come back? You slander good people, you have ulterior motives! My heart kept brewing with the struggle to uncover a conspiracy, and blood rushed straight to my head. Saying my father was a spy, do you have any proof? Did the labor propaganda team, the military representatives, and the Party organization come to a conclusion? If so, have you seen it? Show it to everyone? If you can’t show it, you’re a rumor-monger! You don’t deserve to be a teacher! For days on end I wondered how to find her. Usually, my heart was beating half a day when I made a statement in class, and I was even less sure about this. What if she doesn’t admit what she said? My head was about to explode just thinking about it.
When the opportunity to confront the speech came, things were not what I expected. I saw her coming from the corridor outside the classroom, there was no one around, I rushed to her and stared at her fiercely, I couldn’t get a word in edgewise, I said: My father is not a spy!
The female teacher actually ignored me, don’t turn around and walked away.
Once Dad’s review was finished, he began to think about his old classmates. I didn’t see them interacting that much before the Cultural Revolution. He belongs to the typical scholar, tolerant of loneliness, can focus on his subject for a long time, grinding the bench work first. But after this difficulty, he could not sit still. During the trial, he was asked what reactionary organization he had joined, and Dad said no. After going over and over how many rounds, he finally thought of a spontaneous sorority of classmates called the Yeh Society, taking the meaning of the sun shining on Qing Hua, when he graduated from college. Although Dad’s memory is very good, but did not actively participate in the year, poetry, words and songs is not the strength, plus a lifetime of adherence to the “know as know, do not know as do not know”, daily forced to recall the decades to go, digging, suffering. It turned out that the foreign investigators had already seized a list of Yershey from Mr. Lian Peisheng of the Ministry of Nuclear Industry, and the torture of Dad was actually to test his attitude. The unexpected reward was that thanks to the memories and the materials of the external investigation, Dad learned the whereabouts of many of his old classmates. Since the time when the Southwest United University was in a state of panic and chaos, he had left in a hurry and had not heard from them, and now he could not help but miss them.
Mr. Wang Jitao and Dad had two fellowships in the United Nations University and Purdue University (U.S.), and he was the president of the Chinese fellowship in the United States. He was a poet, calligrapher, and painter, and attended church school since he was young, and his English was excellent. Wang Jitao treated people calmly, was rigorous in his studies, was optimistic and cheerful, and did not compete with the world, but unexpectedly he was also accused and covered in a larger network of secret agents, and became famous overnight when he was in the newspaper. Dad took the opportunity of a business trip to Tianjin to go to Nankai University to inquire about the whereabouts of his old friend Wang Jitao, and learned from the concierge in the messenger room that he was still under isolation review. Thinking of Dad’s disappointed return, it is really bleak to the scene.
Beijing and Tianjin almost a look away, but when I was a child never saw them interacting, generally Dad does not look for people to come home, and even less to visit the old friends, is really a gentleman’s friendship light as water, or a gentleman is not party it. He wants to see his friends so much at this time, he must be bitter and unbearable inside. I am still too young to be in his eyes, so I can’t say anything to my nanny, right? Although my nanny knows how to read and write and understand manners, people are very shrewd, especially not lack of survival wisdom, to our family is also dedicated. I remember the first time my sister-in-law came to our house to play, she saw the old nanny with a newspaper in her hand, reading the “Reference News”, which startled her.
Gradually, more and more people came to see Dad at home. Mr. Reed Chenghao, the chief engineer of Changchun No.1 Automobile Manufacturing Plant, was one of the early visitors among Dad’s classmates from the United University. He said that when he went to school, he and Wang Jitao learned to ride a bicycle, but Wang Jitao couldn’t control himself and hit a lady in a cheongsam, not realizing that she was the aunt of the police chief. When Wang Jitao later came to my house, told the second half of the story – it turns out that Reed Chenghao said he had taught him to ride a bike, to help him support the whole way to escort, but a trouble, he slipped the fastest, a turn of the eye and ran out of shadows. At that time, the police station caught Wang Jitao. Dad said that Uncle Reed was running to the principal, Yang Shi Xian, so that he could bail people out.
After all these years, my father is doing well, I am still growing up well, and the number of years I have lived in the United States is several times longer than my father’s study and visit time combined. Looking back on the past, I naturally have a little more experience. My father’s personal financial situation when he stayed in the U.S. in the 1940s was not as poor as when we left the country in the 1980s, but also not as profligate as the rich family’s children, who bought military-disposed radios just to get a good price. The interesting thing is that my brother’s father-in-law, Mr. Wang Jitao, also brought a radio of the same American army when he returned to China, which became the incriminating evidence for accusing him of being an imperialist spy agent in the Cultural Revolution. They came a long way to choose two industrial products to bring back home, probably as we went abroad in the 1980s to buy refrigerators, color TV, choose the price and brand are the fashion of the moment, the reason is that the domestic industrial products, economic level and commodity supply is not yet developed, as for the future to cause so much trouble, they were not expected. Now it is hard to imagine what kind of person would point to the electrical products you bought more than ten years ago and say you are a spy agent.
The teacher who wouldn’t let her students play with me later worked in the same office with me. She was actually quite kind and had little heart except for being a nag. I always wondered why sometimes people’s judgment is so poor. If you put yourself in my shoes, who would want to develop my father as a secret agent? He was sick when he was small and ate too much quinine, resulting in severe hearing impairment, deafness is very strong, speak only when the volume is very loud to hear. As a special agent, he should at least be able to hear and see, and be handy, but my father was physically unqualified. He couldn’t even ride a bicycle and walked to and from work every day. It’s hard to imagine that he could live a double life as a man who could only read and learn, and suddenly he was very handy behind the scenes. He was very restrained in socializing, and couldn’t even figure out what was right and wrong with the people around him, so where could he gather intelligence? He was a long-time outsider, and by the time the documents reached his ears, probably no one knew about them. He basically had no time left for recreation or anything other than studying and learning, and even during the Cultural Revolution he kept reading with little interruption. If colleagues in the unit suspected that he had done something else in private, they only had to take out all the books he had read and the notes he had taken, and they would understand everything. Not to mention some results or ideas, just read those things once, to push the formula, this time may not be enough. If the criticism of his white specialization, but also close to it, the secret service? That’s outrageous.
When I was a little older, I began to understand the intellectuals who joined the workforce in the 1950s and 1960s. They were the main participants in all the political movements. Their most important political capital was not their bitterness and hatred, but their youth. From the purges, the crackdown, the ideological reform, the anti-rightist, the four purges to the Cultural Revolution, they fought from the old generation of scholars and seniors to the old revolutionaries who started with the “January 29th” school wave, and they were offended by everyone in the school. After the reform and opening up in the 1980s, there were the old generation of scholars who regained their status, and the new scholars who entered the society after ten years of holding in every corner. Times can change, but people can not change. The world’s great trend is vast and turbulent, those who follow it will prosper, those who go against it will die. Fashion can change, doctrine can be different, why must we put people to death? In fact, which generation does not have ideals? Only some ideals can still be used to inspire the new generation, while others are destined to disappear with the fading of specific historical circumstances. Sadly, it is more than a decade of wasted time, more than a generation of hard work and busyness!
What I can’t understand is my father’s energy to study. In the years when he carried the yoke without sin and had bad luck, he still read so vigorously that he never seemed to waver. It is not to say that “the book has its own gold house, the book has its own face like a jade” and the truth is very contrary to the era, reading is not rewarded, but will attract disaster. But he read at every opportunity. In the war against Japan, there was a famous political rallying cry: the large plain of North China could not accommodate a peaceful desk. But when the Cultural Revolution was in full swing, not only the North China Plain, but also the whole China, could not fit on this desk. Dad’s paranoia about reading was almost religious, and when he came home from the factory, he would write on his desk. Interestingly, he wrote in a small book with “work diary” printed in red letters on the vellum cover, and for a long time, I thought he was writing a report on his thoughts or labor exercises. He occasionally pulled the calculation ruler, using the triangle board to neatly write some calculation formulas, so one after another to record a dozen books. After the Cultural Revolution, he published a new book “Engineering Heat and Mass Transfer”, and the original “work diary” was the material he prepared for the manuscript. It is good for a person to be diligent, but if he has not only good habits of diligence, but also a clear direction, then it needs a little faith. When no one is working in this direction, how can it last without a little “faith”?
Once I asked my father which of these political movements was the most painful. He said that during the ideological reform movement, I had to draw a clear line with my grandfather and criticize him, saying that he was a landlord and exploiter, but he was dead, so why talk about him? I couldn’t say that my grandfather was bad. I asked him if he had ever thought about suicide, he said he had, and when he was cleaning up the class ranks, he said he would force me again, and that’s all there was to say, so I couldn’t just make it up, right? If I’m forced, I might as well be like Chen Zudong and go away. Uncle Chen, our old neighbor, hanged himself in Yuanmingyuan in the fall of 1968, shortly after the Qing team movement began.
When I was young, Uncle Chen saw me with a wooden toy sword, excited to run upstairs and downstairs, and asked me if I wanted to play with him? I asked what kind of play? He said Peking Opera. Beijing opera I do not know, he said it does not matter, I will teach you. I only knew that Uncle Chen would play taijiquan and have a real sword at home, but I never thought he could sing opera! I was full of thoughts of wearing high boots, tied by wearing a helmet, carrying a few small flags will play the martial arts students. After that, I have been chasing Uncle Chen to learn opera, and finally he took me to rehearse a fold of “Three Maidens Teach Their Children”, he played the old family Xue Bao, and I played the urchin Yi Ge. We performed two shows in costume, one for the upstairs and downstairs neighbors in our unit, and the other for his relatives and friends during the New Year. I wonder if Uncle Chen, who later refused to reveal the account with his life, was sitting in this group of people. A very kind old man, unexpectedly so rigid. How many professors at Tsinghua University today have the patience to sing with their neighbors’ children and have the grace to hold a party in their own living room? The most unforgettable thing is Uncle Chen’s long and unending voice and his hoarse and pale voice.
A person believe what is not forced out, political learning, the form of ideological reformation can not be said to be ineffective, but it is the harm to people is there for all to see. Dad believed that doing studies is to be done honestly, his teachers did so, and so did other fellow students in the world. He believed that his grandparents were good people, and that what he believed was worth believing. More than ten years after his mother’s death, every morning dad burned a pillar of incense and served a cup of tea in front of his mother’s statue because he was grateful.
In the past, I often talked about trying to transform my worldview, because everyone said so, so I followed without thinking, but in fact, you are not even allowed to see the world, and there is no viewpoint, so how can I transform it? Now that I am past my prime, I still dare not claim to have much perspective on the world. When I was a child working in a factory or in the countryside, I would say that my back hurt when I was tired, and I would be rebuked: How old are you? Children don’t have waists! Perhaps because of my childhood Education, if I am asked to give my opinion on anything, my reaction is particularly slow and I often talk about it. Although I know in my heart, my little opinion is not worth a thousand refinements, no need to be as smooth as a diplomat, my opinion except for myself, no one can represent. In a society sustained by a reformed mind, the search for an absolute moral high point has become a terrible movement that people constantly seek but fail to achieve, plunging them into deep disappointment and disbelief. The waves of political movements did not purify our souls, the bombastic criticism did not turn everyone into a philosopher, and the endless interrogation of everyone’s motives drained our energy, leaving us immersed in an apocalyptic panic from which we could not extricate ourselves. Is it the inevitable price of modernization that the years no longer display the joy of life, that the sun, moon and stars have been given ugly political meanings, that the mountains and rivers have lost their proper solemnity, and that the landscape of grass and trees is no longer sentient and righteous? The desire for goodness and the reality of ugliness have shaken my trust in people and destroyed my trust in my country and society. To prevent being duped and to adapt to the harsh environment we grew up in, we became short-sighted and lacked patience. Even we ourselves did not understand why we all had to live so fearfully in a time of peace.
In the early nineties, I finished my studies in the United States and found a decent job, but my father wanted me to go back to China. All my relatives and friends thought he was confused because he wanted his son and grandson. My dad also lamented: We used to study abroad and choose our majors because we thought what China lacked. What kind of skills and talents does the country need? Nowadays, people think about what they like and which line of work is good for earning big money, the times are really different. Is he not afraid that we come out of a family of secret agents? No, he is not afraid, because he believes that only when the country is rich and strong we can live well as individuals. To say that Dad’s belly is full of learning all the foreign goods is true, but his integrity, but the authentic traditional Chinese literati, their generation of firm and our generation of change, just into a contrast.
The other day I called my brother and asked him: Where is my father’s American army tube radio? He said he had thrown it away long ago. I said, “Yo! How to throw away, that is a cultural relic!
A draft in Wuwai Lodge, July 26, 2007
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