1927: Work the land

Pity Peasant Song by Tang dynasty poet Li Sen (780-846)

Hoe crop sun high noon,
Sweat drops field down earth.
Who knows food on plate,
Each grain by hard toil.


1927 - age 26 continued

One day at the YMCA, the nationalist party called for a meeting and the auditorium was full inside and out. Because I didn't need to do any service for this meeting, I went to my room to rest. But after a little while, I heard fighting in the auditorium. It started with a quarrel and grew into a fist fight. The members used chairs as weapons. A lot of people got hurt. The two party leaders fled from the chaos and came into my room. I welcomed them and said here we don't separate people by party, we only recognize people by province. I gave each one a glass of water. Mr Cen and Mr He became very cordial and gentleman like. After the chaos died down, both of them left smiling.

Ever since the business school relocated to Guoliding, each class was in a wooden classroom. Because the transportation to and from the main area was infrequent, a lot of students couldn't make it to class. As for my department, there was a professor named Qu Guanggui who was very strict on attendance. Every class, he had someone perform roll call. Each student had a name tag to flip over when they entered class. So he knew who attended. But the students were crafty and had their peers turned their name tags over for them. At the beginning of class, there were so many tags being flipped, it was hard to tell who was doing what. This method was a flop, so after a while, he cancelled this practice.

There were many people who stayed with me at the YMCA dormitory. One man from Jiangxi named Cen Maoying was kind of short and fat but he majored in music in voice. He was quite talented and sang baritone. Every time we had a chance, people in the dormitory asked him to sing. He never said no. Everybody liked it very much. There was one day he and I didn't have class, and both of us came back to the dorm to rest. At that time, the Chinese national anthem had words but the government was asking for the song. Cen had composed a version to submit to see if he would win and receive the award. He told me there was a part of the song which he wasn't satisfied with. His roommate Mr Liang wrote down his song in notation. Even though he didn't like it, I told him to go ahead and submit it to make the deadline. After Mr Liang wrote it in musical notation, he wrote down Mr Cen's name and it won. It is the tune of the Nationalist anthem.


1928 - age 27

Inside China, there was war. The government sent troops into Wuchang and Hankou. There was a policy to centralize currency. Most of the money was used for the military. So the funding for education was very lacking. Sometime we didn't have any money come for one or two months. Most of the students panicked. If they sent a letter back home, there was no reply. So we went to the embassy for help. At that time, the ambassador Mr Jiang was from Hubei. He participated in Sen Yishen's revolution. Even though he was very sympathetic to the students, there were too many of us and the money was a large amount so he had no way of solving the problem and refused to see us. So all the students loitered in the embassy and wouldn't leave. We occupied the embassy until the next morning. Ambassador Jiang, after seeing us occupy for so long, came to talk to us. He told us to return to school and study hard and, "The money the government owes you, I will send a telegram." He gave us some assurance so we went back to school. The governor of Hubei at that time used to work for this ambassador. So after he received the telegram, as compared to the military money, this amount wasn't that much, so they sent funds to the ambassador and the students were satisfied.

As I mentioned before, I lived in the YMCA dorm. Because I had to go to school for class, my mealtimes weren't regular and I didn't dine regularly at the YMCA. To save money, I usually ate at public diners because they were cheap. Even though they weren't tasty, they had sufficient nutrition. These diners were established for common people's convenience. But they had hours and if you missed closing time, you didn't eat. Sometimes I got so focused on studying, I lost track of time and by the time I made it to the diner, they were closed and I had to find other places to eat. About this experience of hunger, I wrote a poem. In order to manage my time better, I set a certain time to take the train to the university. If there was class I went. If not, I studied by myself. At noon time, I always went to the school dining room for lunch because at that time we had the government funding, I had more money and every meal I could choose better food so I had better nutrition. In the evening, I took the train back to YMCA and sometimes saw people rowing boats and by the bridge there were some slums. I wrote some poems about that too.

I worked as assistant director of the YMCA for quite a while. This year, the YMCA bought a piece of land and planned to build five dorms for staff and workers. Mr Ma named this area East Youth Village. There were four directors: Zhang, Qu, Xie, and Lao. Each stayed in one dorm. Another bigger building was assigned to Mr Ma. Mr Ma had quite a few children, his eldest and second daughter were in Japanese elementary school. They asked me to tutor them in Chinese, so they gave me a little side room as my dormitory. Because of this, I also was a member at East Youth Village. I left the YMCA dorm where I stayed for three years and moved to East Youth Village. From East Youth Village to Business University was a lot closer, so it was more convenient. The only thing was this whole area was residential with no stores. If I needed to buy something, I had to go to Silver Chair (my mom notes this is a well known shopping area).

1927: Taste and see

 Newlywed Bride by Tang dynasty poet Wang Jian

Three days after, into the kitchen,
Wash hands, make meaty broth;
Doesn't know mother-in-law's food preferences,
First send to sister-in-law to taste.

1927 - age 26

As previously stated, the Business School building was located at One Bridge, and was destroyed by the earthquake. In the business district, there was not much available land. Then, the president at that time, Mr Zuoye, had great vision and obtained approval from the government to buy several hundred acres of empty lots in the suburbs of Tokyo, called Guoliding. He planned to relocate the university. At first, he built some wooden buildings closer to the railroad. These preliminary buildings were used as classrooms. My department used to hold class at the old location, and in this year, we moved to Guoliding. (The U.S. had their air force headquarters located in this place during WWII. Therefore, this location was quite well known.) At that time, there was an electric train to Guoliding from Toyko, but every day there was only one run. If we missed this train, we needed to walk about 2 km. We had to walk through the fields and crops to reach our school. It was quite difficult. Sometimes we walked with quite a few classmates together but everyone walked without complaining. I was very impressed by these Japanese, they could take hardship. I followed their lead in not complaining. Until the 1970s, when Japan became more developed and rich, when I visited Guoliding, it had elevated from a city under state rule but reported directly to the federal government. When I visited in the 70s, and reflected upon what it used to be like, I thought it was another world. All the alumni, in order to memorialize how we walked to school in the olden days, established a pioneer club. I was a basic member and there was an annual meeting every fall. Later on, when I was appointed to the embassy, I always made time to attend the annual meeting.

When we moved to Guoliding, among all the subjects, we had bookkeeping. The teacher was Xiaye Zitailang. He was quite the authority in the accounting field in Japan. A lot of the famous scholars were his students. He used to tell us, "The principles of bookkeeping in Japan: there's only one person who understands, that's me. Even your teachers Ji Tian and Tai Tian, they don't quite understand either. So you of course do not understand. But don't worry, I have pity on all of you and will pass all of you." He always saw himself as a business scholar. A lot of his students already had PhDs but he himself only held a Bachelor's. According to the regulations of that time, in order to get a doctorate, you had to have a thesis. Xiaye did not want to write a thesis, saying, "The reason I don't want to write one is because there is no one qualified to examine my thesis." He was so arrogant. I heard that the education department of Japan asked him to be the president of the university and every time he rejected it. His reason was, "If you want to be president, you need to be humble and patient. I'm not that kind of person, I'm hot-tempered, so I'm not suitable to be president." He knew himself.

Inside China, there were lots of wars. Militarily and politically, all the parties had lots of changes. Tokyo used to be the location of our united forces. Because of all the changes from war, we were heavily influenced. After Sen Yaoxian died, Guomingdang had several people the press called the Xisan party. Another branch party formed by Guomingdang members because there was a period of time they would include the Communist party--this was called the Left by the press. The Xisan and Left parties used to confront each other in Tokyo. Xisan was considered the legitimate party; whereas the Left was considered more radical and diverse, with more young people. The Left party usually had meetings in the YMCA. Both party leaders I was friends with. Usually, even though there were two parties, most the leaders were very capable people. Because I was very busy with studies and also needed to work at the YMCA I didn't have time to participate in any political parties and I did not claim either one. Both parties understood my position.