1926: Friends

River Bend Drinks with Another by Tang dynasty poet Du Pu

Back from court day after day pawn my shirt,
Every day at head waters quite drunk return;
Bar tabs usually one at every place,
Living until 70 since ancient times is rare.
Flitting among the flowers butterflies plainly see,
Tapping on the water dragonflies graceful float:
Tell them wind light go with the flow and turns,
Though fleeting, appreciate each other, don't push back.

Note: Qujiang is in modern day Xi'an and in ancient times was reserved for Han dynasty emperors, by the Tang dynasty, it was open to public so people like Du Pu could go there for entertainment.


1926 - age 25

Sangda (Business University) was located by One Bridge. (After WWII, Sangda was called One Bridge University.) This university was close to the YMCA where I stayed. Because it was very close, it was very convenient to go there. The only thing was most of the college buildings had been damaged by the earthquake. Even though it was damaged, it did not get repaired, so the buildings were broken and old. However the curriculum was quite modern and stringent. The thing that impressed me the most was a professor named Luye Qing. Mr Lu taught bookkeeping. This was the beginning of accounting. This class was the business school's main subject. Mr Luye taught bookkeeping very well and I was very interested. When he said bookkeeping, he put the capital as a debt. At that time, from my humble understanding, capital was my money, I can use capital to pay my debt. How can you say capital is debt? After the explanation by Mr Luye and some back and forth, I started to understand. From then on, I was most interested in accounting. We had four professors, they were all authoritative scholars in the Japanese school of accounting. I took their lecture notes and I also collected a lot of references through my senior year, which I compiled into the Essence of Accounting. It was published by a Shanghai company. At that time in China there were not many textbooks on accounting. This might be one of the greatest accomplishments of my studying in Japan, even though it was established at the beginning of my studies.

Mr Sanko taught English at the university. He had very good knowledge of English and his method of teaching was very strict. Most Japanese students because of the Japanese language their pronunciation in English was pretty awful. Because I had trained in English during high school, most of the English teachers being from England, my pronunciation was more accurate. Mr Sanko really appreciated my pronunciation. Every time he needed someone to read a part, he always called me to read aloud in class. When he called on me, I usually humbly accepted. Fellow classmates didn't feel I was showing off. Among my classmates was a person called Congye Jishong. He spoke better English than most of my classmates. He liked to talk with me in English. He and I became pretty close friends. In 1971, when I was working at the Chinese embassy in Japan as an official, I left that job to return to Taiwan, and the alumni of Sangda gave me a farewell party. Mr Congye came and gave a speech wherein he mentioned that forty years ago we chatted in English and told lots of jokes and everyone had a good laugh.

The Japanese language is one of the most difficult languages in the world. I went to the prep school to be tutored in Japanese, and because of my age, I was 25, I didn't learn the Japanese language very well. Most of the Japanese professors, when they gave lectures, most of the students took notes right away. But my comprehension was not that good so I couldn't take very good notes. One way to compensate was that I sat by whomever took the best notes. Anytime I could not understand, I looked at his notes. After class, I would borrow his notes to review. Among my classmates, there were two or three who were my best friends. Especially Gang Tian, his penmanship was beautiful and he took thorough notes that were the best in the whole class. Another was named Si Jing. I depended on both of them to understand most of the lectures from the professors. Gradually, my comprehension improved and the degree to which I depended on them lessened. After I graduated from business university, I went back to China to work and serve. During the Sino-Japanese war, I lost contact with most of my Japanese classmates. After the war, I was sent to Japan to work. I tried to find Gang Tian and Si Jing. I learned that Si Jing died quite early due to illness. And Gang Tian had been killed by a motorcycle while he was a pedestrian. I was very sad about their passing.

In my freshman year, I got a certificate stating I was studying at this university. I used this certificate to send to a Chinese office in Tokyo which was in charge of the Chinese students in Japan. This office sent it to the Chinese central government department of education to give me a certificate that said I was studying in Japan. The date on the certificate was Republic of China year 15 June 1. It had my name, age, hometown, and said that I was a visiting student. I write this because before this time, junior and high schools were not accredited with the Chinese government, so I didn't have any documentation of my education. This certificate was the first to prove my education. I still have the original. On the left upper corner was my picture. This was my earlier photo. Even though there were photography studios in Jioujiang and Huangmei, I never had one taken in those early years. Starting in Republic of China year 4 (1915), when I went to Wucang to junior and senior high, I had photos taken but I lost them. So this certificate with my photo is quite precious.

After I got the certificate, I could apply to the Hubei province department of education sponsorship for my studies. The money came monthly and it greatly helped my studying so I didn't need to worry, so I could study. This fund required that I had to solely study and not work. So after I started receiving the Hubei sponsorship, I stopped my pay from the YMCA. Even though I didn't get paid, I still did the 5-10pm job. It didn't hinder my grades. As for the extra YMCA activities, if I had time, I still participated. I was a volunteer assistant worker. Ma Buoyuan also took me as a staff member. Anytime we had special speeches or discussions or staff meetings, I was the secretary and took all the minutes and made correspondence and did bookkeeping. Most of these clerical tasks were through me. Most of these records I kept as a memento and I wrote two poems about this time when I worked in the YMCA.