1930-1932: Those who make do not wear

Silkworm Maids by Anonymous

Yesterday, arrived at the city,
Upon return, tears wet handkerchief;
From head to toe, silk wearers,
Are not the ones who tend silk worms.

1930 - age 29 (continued)

The new building of the business college was finished. All the classrooms and lecture halls were big and tall with modern ventilation and lighting systems. There were offices, dining rooms, kitchens, and bathrooms. The most impressive part was the library. The architecture was classical with a bell tower and stood facing a pond, beautifully landscaped. Inside, there were huge reading rooms and all the seats were so comfortable with huge tables. Every chair had a lamp. Those few years when I was at the school, besides spending time in classroom listening to lectures, the rest of the time I usually spent in the library. I had a favorite seat where I usually sat. After graduation, I left the school, and had very complicated emotions. The thing that was the hardest to give up was my seat in the library. Later on, when I was sent to Japan to work in the embassy or any time I had some business passing by Tokyo, I always visited my alma mater and had to go to the library to look at my seat. Don't you think that's kind of silly?

There was another student from Bowen High School, named Chen Shushen. He was two years ahead of me and he also had a full scholarship. This Mr Chen was a very talented young scholar. Every year, Hubei province had a special kind of exam for the students studying abroad. He scored the highest on this exam and was sent to the US to study. During this exam, he met a female student, also with the last name Chen, and she was a petite beauty. She took the exam and also passed and was sent to Japan to study. Mr Chen fell in love with Miss Chen and when he went to the US, he passed by Tokyo and came to me to help him find Miss Chen. Miss Chen, because she was so popular, when she arrived in Tokyo, everyone wanted to contact her. Because I was also from Hubei, I only saw her once. I thought Mr. Chen was so crazy about her, it wasn't appropriate. As a bystander, even though Mr Chen is a capable person, she has no reason to make his acquaintance. When I found out about the situation, I convinced him not to pursue her, advising him to take it easy. He went sadly on to the US. Later, he wrote me a letter from the US saying that he had found somebody else. In the meantime, he was hired by a newspaper to be an editor and asked me to write for this publication. I wrote an article about Japanese commerce and industry and mailed it to him. He published my article in the paper and in large print it said it was by Mr Qu from Tokyo, which made me feel uneasy as he made such a big deal about it. 

1931 - age 30

The subjects I took in business school were accounting from Prof. Xiaye Zhitailang, economics from Prof. Futian, and business management from Prof. Santian. The business management class was the best in Japanese academia. There was also a class called banking and currency. This subject in this school was the authoritative course. Most of the professors who taught were the top in their field, lauded by the Japanese business industry. The one who had the highest honor was Mr Gaohuan. His lectures were so in depth and referenced the best Western European and American business schools. He was very good in English, French, German and was not only fluent but had studied their new knowledge. He was over the age of 80 and still worked very hard and loved to teach, a good professor. After the war, I was sent to Japan on government duty, and went to visit him. We talked about Taiwan's banking and currency and he gave me a lot of outstanding counsel. After I finished my government duties, and returned home, the late President Jiang called me to give a report and asked me what I learned in Japan. I used Mr Gaohuan's suggestions to reply. The late President Jiang valued the Japanese opinion. After he heard my report, he hesitated but told me if necessary, we could invite Mr Gaohuan to Taiwan to improve our currency and banking. I was very impressed with his conclusion. When I spoke with the President, I used Mr Gaohuan's Japanese name and he replied to tell me he used the Japanese pronunciation because he knew Japanese. Even though I knew he could speak Japanese, he hadn't used it in a long time. When he said Gaohuan, his pronunciation was so accurate I assumed he had a friend named Gaohuan as well. 

In the business university, there was a system that all junior year students had to pick a research subject and choose an adviser for study and thesis. As for writing thesis, the subject and how you're going to write it, you had to have a proposal for the professor to approve. Some professors were very strict and we students were nervous to approach them, for example, Professor Santian. Another professor named Jingten, his way of teaching was more free and liberal. You could pick a subject as you liked. He didn't interfere, so most students chose him for adviser. For my thesis, because for the past few years I had written a lot about accounting basics, I wanted to compile my articles together. I went to Jingten and he approved it, I was grateful to him. Mr Jingten's subject was finance. He already had a PhD in economics. He published a book called Principles of Finance which was the best known in Japan. In Japan, many of the economics clubs united together and became a powerful group, almost as strong as the political groups. The united economic group was of citizens, not politicians. Every year, they had a lot of input in the tax system. Because most of the tax systems were implemented by political groups, they had a lot of influence. There was a person who was a leading researcher among these experts named Fanzhong. One day, I went to visit Mr Fanzhong at the united ecenomics group and I saw on his desk was a copy of Jingten's book. Prof. Jingten was elected as president of the business school and his students after all these years numbered about 700. There was a club called Ten Friends Meeting. Today, in Taiwan, of all the alumni of this business university, only Mr Yang Langzhou and I were members of Ten Friends. In the autumn of 1970, I was working in the embassy and Mr Yang passed by Tokyo and we made a special trip to Prof. Jingten's home to visit him. We brought a dozen bottles of Shaoxing wine as a present as he famously had an evening drink. Everyone was very happy about this visit. 

There was a school requirement that besides English, every student needed to choose another foreign language: Chinese, German, French, Italian, or Spanish. Most Japanese students chose Chinese, reasoning 1) it was pretty similar to Japanese and would be easier to learn than a Western language, 2) if Japan wanted to expand, China is a good aim so the Chinese language would be useful, and 3) the one who taught Chinese was called Chang Jingren and it was easy to pass his exams. I am Chinese and didn't want to pick Chinese, so I chose French. The one who taught French was a French professor our university recruited with a high salary. He was very serious in teaching, that's why we all worked very hard. At the final exam, there were several people who didn't pass and needed more tutoring. I barely passed, fortunately. 

The military was fighting in the north to unite China. One of the generals was from Hubei, Mr Hu Zhongtuo. He was the head of the 7th regiment. He won Wuhan and was assigned as Hubei's governor. He is the kind of person who has vision and sent his fifth younger brother to study in Japan. Mr Hu's family was from Huangmei and between his family and my family were only a few miles. The family of Qu and family of Hu had a lot of marital relations. This fifth brother who came to Tokyo, I accepted as a kinsmen. We were very close. At that time, he was a newlywed and brought his new bride Xu Lingqing with him to Tokyo to study. Everybody was very envious because he had a wife to bring with him to study. At that time, I was already an old hand in Tokyo and took care of a lot of their miscellaneous aspects of Tokyo life. Later on, they introduced me to Diqin. From engagement to wedding, everything was arranged by this couple. (In Chinese, lianjing is the name of the son in laws. Zouli is what the daughter in laws are called.) It is a honor for me to be Mr Hu's lianjing. 

1932 - age 31

My grades in business school were average but the advisory professors thought I was pretty good in banking and currency. According to their standards, I needed to take more classes in insurance so they suggested that I delay my graduation to the following year and continue the government grant. But I reflected on my life, to have an opportunity to study is not common, but I was already 31. Compared to the average college kid, I was already ten years behind. Even though I was already late, I still wanted to take the opportunity to get more knowledge. So I decided to take another year. As for the study of insurance, I needed to learn under several professors. In order to read reference materials, after passing the French exam, I decided to study German on my own. Every morning, I needed to study at least an hour. The reason is that Japan valued German articles. A lot of the students studied German on their own. There were lots of materials to aid this endeavor for sale in the market.