1933: Work

Late Spring Spontaneity by Song dynasty poet Lu You (1125-1210)

Dragon bone pump* noise waters flow sop
With rain still can hope for abundant crop
Old farmers love calf walk mud slow
Young maids fret moths** pick leaves nonstop

*nickname for Zhejiang foot pump vehicle
**silkworm


1933 - age 32 continued

I was working at Lixin and very happily employed there. Mr Pan and several colleagues--two Mr Gu, Mr Chan, Mr Wong--we all got along well. We worked together to improve our accounting systems and build our commerce and business. In November, one day, Mr Pan called me to have a talk. He talked about my working here and everyone getting along very happily. "But now I have a more important job for you to do. I already recommended you for this new job. You will go to the Central Bank, to a newly established economic research division. Please go there and ask for Mr Lee Dang." So I went to see him the next day, he immediately accepted my appointment to see him and said this research center needed someone who knows Japanese to do the research work. "If you would like to apply, please send me your transcript from the business university." This Mr Lee was from Hunan and studied in Germany. Before he went to Germany, he had studied at Waseda University in Tokyo and so he knew the Japanese education and was familiar with all my classes. So I sent him my transcript and upon review, he assigned me to a research post at this center. The research center director was Mr Kong. Another position was held by Lee Dang. There were several other research personnel specialist co-editors, a lot of famous people: Mr Liu, Mr Jing, Mr Cao, the specialists. The co-editors were all chosen from recent graduates of overseas universities: from England Mr Cue, Mr Diao; from America Mr Gao, Mr Qiao; from Germany Mr Wu, Mr Gu; from France Mr Cen, Mr Pan; from Japan me and later on they also invited Mr Jiang. The main duty of our work was to publish a weekly finance report and the Central Bank's monthly report. Mostly, we worked on currency, financing, and all the co-editors, we worked together, researched together, discussed together, and wrote our articles and everyone worked really well together. As for myself, I collected Japanese material from the Meiji Restoration, post-Russian-Japanese war and later on the Japanese-China war/WWII. There was a lot of historical research. I compiled a book called Currency of Japan. My articles amounted to 200,000 words and I have kept it until now. Every time I take it out and review it, I always think there are many errors to be corrected. I procrastinated publishing them all these years. This is one of my failures in my work. All of our co-editors, besides working together, always took lunch together in the cafes nearby. So in addition to our working relationship, we also built friendships. In 1937, when Mr Fu became our director, he was also on the board of directors of the China Industry Bank, he assigned me to the China Industrial Bank to work and I left the research center. But my position was still kept as co-editor and I also received a salary from them. Starting from the research center, I worked for this bank for six years.