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.