Duanwu de Mayo #6

Margaritas in Grand Rapids by Dana Jill and friends
Gary wants a margarita
(A taco sounds really good right now)
When he drinks, he doesn’t bark
Happy dog, happy tenants, happy duanwu de mayo

A walk in the woods by Annalise
Everything is new and exciting to my dandelion-toting toddler
Our time together is peaceful and fun
When all of a sudden she loses her balance and falls
All peace and fun is gone

Backyard birds by Irene
Yellow feathered couples visit a-morning
Black masked friends hop carefully
We sit and ponder their names
Happy! Skinny! But they ignore our calls

1940 - age 39 Part 2

Now our family was split up in three places: my parents and brother's family in Huangmei, although occupied by the Japanese, because the farm areas are isolated, transportation was very inconvenient so fortunately was not disturbed by the Japanese army; and my wife and three kids lived in Shanghai inside the French Concession, more or less safe; I by myself living in Ganzhou, both my work and private life were pretty comfortable. My main job was at Yumin Bank, I also had another job with the China Tea Company. Yumin Bank paid me pretty well. This year, we got a bonus of $4,380. I put this money into the bank savings account. All the bank employees got high-interest rates and the China Tea Company paid me $280 every month, I also had a bonus of $2300. So my income was pretty good. In the spring, I had planned to bring my mother to Ganzhou so I could take care of her. Because of wartime, the transportation wasn't good and it's even harder for old people to travel far. My mother also could not bear to leave her home. That's how my plans were unfulfilled. Next, I traveled to Shanghai because at that time there were boats traveling between the inner city and Shanghai so I planned to take the boat.

There was a Nanchang Printing Company, the president was Mr Den. He also moved his factory to Ganzhou. He needed to buy some supplies in Shanghai and he came to visit me to discuss a transfer of funds. He knew that I had family in Shanghai so he asked me to travel with him. At that time, General Manager Mr Du approved this suggestion and my absence from my work in Yumin Bank. He gave me a month's leave. So on July 16, I and Mr Den took the bus from Ganzhou to Nancen. In Nancen, Mr Den learned of some road closures between there and Shanghai so we waited several days in Nancen. The roads remained closed so we had to return to Ganzhou. Our bus needed some repairs. On the 21st, we started traveling again. That day was my birthday and in the morning, because of traveling, I only drank a glass of water. I spent my birthday on the bus. At noontime, we arrived at a place where Mr Den treated me to lunch at a restaurant. The food was very good. So it was my birthday dinner. Every birthday, I usually think about my mother. I think that I didn't have a chance to take care of her. A lot of times, I shed tears about this. On that day at 3PM, we arrived in Ganzhou. I canceled my leave and returned to work.

In the suburbs of Ganzhou, there's a famous tourist spot called Yugu Pagoda. In the Tang Dynasty, the governor was named Li Mian. He came to Yugu Pai. This spot has been the subject of many historical poets and many people have written poems about this place. The year before, I was going to go from Ganzhou via Hongkong to Shanghai, I was waiting in Guangzhou for four days. During those four days, I made a trip to Yugu Pai. So I had a good impression of that place. And I also wrote a poem in my collection.

Chiang Jieshi's oldest son Jinguo came back from Russia and Chiang Jieshi wanted him to have more experience so he assigned Jinguo to Jiangxi Province to serve under Governor Shong who assigned him to serve as Fa'ansiling (security) Vice Commander. Later on, he assigned him to the provincial government. Jinguo usually worked very hard and was devoted to all the people, especially the lower level people like factory workers and farmers. He was well respected by all the farmers and factory workers. At that time, our bank printed currency of $.50 by a printing company. This printing company also moved over from Nanchang to Ganzhou. One day I went to take a look at the factory. All the workers mentioned Jinguo. They didn't say "Mr Jinguo", they always called him "our special supervisor". He was well respected among all the workers. When we had the mid-autumn festival, Jinguo threw a huge party for all the lower workers and army and families. He treated everybody to a huge dinner. Eight people to a table, and at every table a local dignitary, the other seven were farmers and soldiers. I was also assigned to a table. At my table, everybody was an older farmer. I came from a poor farming family so felt very close to them. They all spoke Ganzhou dialect and I can only speak Jioujiang dialect so we couldn't communicate very well. The Special Supervisor gave a speech, it went very long. He said during the mid-autumn festival, we drink three kinds of wine: one kind is the wine made of blood because our soldiers are still at war; the second kind made by sweat because the farmers and factory workers were working so hard; the third kind made by tears, our whole nation wanted to fight the intruders and we were all working together to wash out the oppressor. After he said this, everybody was very touched. I always remembered his speech. Every time I had a chance to talk with friends, anyone who had been at this dinner remembers that. We always said Chiang Jieshi has someone to continue the work, like Solomon succeeding David. Later on, China's central government fled to Taiwan and Chiang Jinguo became the sixth president. We always recalled the time when we heard him. 

[Mom: Educated in Russia, he probably became a Communist. Jinguo really wanted the poor people to become wealthier and have better lives. He wasn't corrupt, wanting a lot of money for himself. He wasn't into drinking smoking and operas. He lived a very frugal life, eating vegetables.]

1939 - age 38 Part 4; 1940 - age 39 Part 1

The general manager of the Yumin Bank is getting pretty old and unhealthy; a lot of the heavy jobs he could not perform. From the beginning of this year, before we retreated from Nanchang, the general manager Mr. Chen went to Chongqing to attend a conference. He took his family with him and they did not go through the chaotic retreat from Nanchang to Ji'an. After we settled in Ji'an, he returned from Chongqing and came to Taihe. They settled down pretty well and had the sedan chair transportation in place. For him, everything was comfortable and smooth, the bank was operating normally. There were lots of detailed things that I and several other colleagues managed. At this time, a famous dentist arrived in Fujian. Our general manager had some dental work he needed to be done so he traveled to Fujian to see this dentist at the beginning of October. Every detail and operational responsibility fell on my shoulders. At the beginning of November, the general manager wrote me a letter of resignation. He had been the general manager at the bank for five years and the net worth of the bank had increased from 700,000 to 40,000,000, so he made a great contribution. The headquarters in Shanghai assigned Mr. Du to become our new general manager. At this time we were in Taihe and needed to retreat again to Ganzhou. Unfortunately, there were no mansions to house our banking needs in Ganzhou, only a Confucian' temple. It was pretty big but old and run down and needed a lot of repairs. After we completed repairs, we used a huge curtain to separate the devotees' ceremonial space from our working area. That's how we worked in Ganzhou.

This year in summary from the beginning: I attended Yuming Bank's retreat from Nanchang to Ji'an, then to Taihe; Shuyuan was born; we also established the China Tea Company. Also, Mr. Chen resigned, and afterward, we moved to Ganzhou. That's how we passed this year of the war.

1940 - age 39 Part 1

Last year during the spring, our bank retreated from Nanchang to Ji'an and then to Taihe. At the end of the year, we moved from Taihe to Ganzhou. Before we rented the Confucian temple, we rented an elementary school. The board member Mr. Chou was an excellent cook and very hospitable. He often cooked lots of delicious food to entertain friends. (Mr. Chou emphasized the importance of how you cook with heat. Guests had to arrive very punctually. He cooked to be ready exactly at the time the guests were supposed to arrive. If you arrive late, you don't have a chance to eat the delicacies and have to eat fried rice instead. One of his famous dishes is White Add Fish Heads: using freshly caught fish heads, add a lot of ingredients, and then drain the moisture, marinate, put in a huge pot with soup. After the soup boils, you add cold water into the soup, and after it boils again, you add more cold water. Do like this several times and then you take the fish heads out and eat them right away, otherwise you can't leave it there to sit. Mr. Chou and I are very good friends so while I was in Ganzhou I enjoyed White Add Fish Heads several times.)

After we moved to Ganzhou there were two things that are not very good. One is inflation, everything got more expensive. Another thing is that people are very purposeless, unfocused on any specific job. For instance, inflation: when you go to a book store to buy a book, between the time you order it and when it arrives, the price increased by three times. The same happened to clothing and everything else. [My mom remembers this inflation as a child and it was scary.] At Yumin Bank, on the board, there were people with various opinions. And our new general manager was a nice but weak person; many colleagues were loyal to different parties and there was infighting, so there wasn't much progress. He is only one person, there's no way you can get rid of these different parties and systems. So our bank does not have a good outlook. When I look back to when I first joined the bank, General Manager Chen resigned and Mr Yan left at Taihe so there's not much progress. Our neighboring province of Fujian, close to the coast, had lots of overseas Chinese families. Because of the overseas relatives in Fujian, their provincial government had lots of talented people to work for them. Because of our poor outlook, Fujian seemed like a better prospect to me. I received a letter on January 29 from Mr. Chen from Fujian. This Mr. Chen had heard about my work experience and appreciated many of my accomplishments. So I made the decision to leave Jiangxi to go to Fujian. Just at that time, Yumin Bank had a project with the Fujian provincial government. So general manager Du assigned me to Fujian to negotiate. On the 27th of February, I traveled to Ruijin and arrived at the Fujian Changting branch. On the 28th I arrived in Longyan and visited Mr. Chen. He introduced me to the Fujian governor Chen Yi and we spoke for two hours and had a very pleasant visit. On March 2, I traveled from Longyan to Nanping. On the 3rd of March, from Nanping, I returned to Guangze. On the 4th of March from Guangze to Nanfeng. Nanfeng had branches of both our banks. On the 6th of March, I traveled from Nanfeng back to Ganzhou. 

[Japan occupied Taiwan for fifty years. After WWII, Taiwan was returned to China. The Chinese Central government sent Chen Yi and my grandfather to receive Taiwan back from Japan. Says my mom, "My dad always told us how good Chen Yi was, so good and upright and hardworking and efficient. So unlike other politicians who were lazy and corrupt."]

In order to get rid of our colleagues' bad practice of faction fighting and to keep our coworkers abreast of technology and current knowledge, we formed a training class and gave lessons on history, geography, business management, international trading, and banking laws. Every training is a half-year per section, without tuition. It didn't matter if you were a man, a woman, old, or young; we settled on 120 students for this training. At the end of the training, if your score is good, the bank would hire you. If you were already a bank employee, the bank will give you a promotion. At the beginning of the training class, I gave an address encouraging everyone to study hard. I also gave a lecture on banking law; my class was welcomed by the students. After beginning this class, we had very good results. Everyone learned a lot of new things and also became more harmonious. So to rid parties and sectors, our bank benefitted from this training. Later on, when I left Jiangxi for Fujian, all these students formed a farewell party to appreciate me. Also, afterward, we had a group picture of everybody and this photo I still have with me. 

[The sad thing is Chen Yi, after they received Taiwan, there were lots of things to start. He did quite a good job. But unfortunately in 1949 when Jiang Jeishi fled the mainland for Taiwan, he thought Chen Yi was a traitor or agent for the communists and had him executed. The Guomingdang killed a lot of people. Fifty or seventy years later, one of his assassins came forward and said they were sent to Chen Yi saying he was called to see Jiang Jieshi. He was very obedient and showered and put on clean clothes, then they took him to a place and executed him.]

1939 - age 38 Part 3

When we arrived at Ji'an in mid-April, we had a terrible bombing. On the 26th of April, Nanchang was occupied and Ji'an was now close to the front lines. During the day, we had sirens for bomb warnings usually in the morning. Every bank changed working hours from 5pm to 9pm. There was a huge bombing and one exploded at the entrance to the shelter, there were many casualties. We planned on moving our bank headquarters to Taihe, so I needed to go ahead to take a look to see which spot we should move to. When I went to explore Taihe, it was actually a very nice place. Zejiang University had moved there once but later on continued west. We had Jiangxi provincial government move over here into the Shao Family mansion. Mr Shao was a millionaire and his business of transporting salt was how he got his wealth. [How my maternal grandmother's family was wealthy too.] After he became rich, he built many housing units, nearly a hundred buildings. Also, he built roads and all the necessities to form a community. Since the Jiangxi provincial government occupied the Shao compound, our bank Yumin needed to find another place in Taihe. So I was looking and asking around and was told that there was a place called Xinling Village only a few miles away where another millionaire named Liu had built a lot of houses that could be rented to us. This Mr. Liu used to be Mr. Shao's household manager. Both of them became millionaires and built lots of housing. Later on, Central Bank, Farmers' Bank, and several others all moved to Xinling cuen. So it became a banking area. And between Xinling cuen and the city was only a very tiny walking path between rice paddies, not wide enough for cars. So in order for the manager's transportation, they hired several people to carry sedan chairs. That was the main way of transportation. Many electric poles were set up for telephone lines. On July 6, the telephone system was finished and I tried out the system by calling the manager at Ji'an, Mr. Cui. He said my Shanghai apartment had sent a telegram that said, "Your wife gave birth to a boy. Both mother and baby are well." I was very glad. Because the next day I needed to return to Ji'an, I told them to leave the telegram there. On the 7th of July, I arrived in Ji'an, read the telegram myself, and immediately sent a telegram to my wife to congratulate her. This is our third child and we named him Shuyuan. His family tree name (puyun) is Zhangjun. This piece of telegram I have kept until today because when Shuyuan was young we used to tease him that because he was born when his father wasn't present that he was picked up from the street. When he grew up and he read this telegram, he said, "I was not picked up from the street because you have this telegram as evidence." It was very coincidental that we had the telegram from when he was born. 

[When people go to Huangsan who can't climb, they hire sedan chairs to carry them up!] 

In Jiangxi province, besides rice, another important product was tea. There were three main areas for tea production. The Jiangxi tea they pressed into bricks which could transported to places like Russia. Together with Anhui's tea, in China we called them Shuangbi (Jade Tea Pair), the top grade. In Jiangxi, from breeding, seedling, cultivation, fertilizer, picking, green tea, and black tea, transported to Hong Kong to be sold to the whole world. But these tea farmers usually lived far from each other and did not know about international trade. So we bankers had to help them out. During this long process of making tea, there were times we needed to loan them money; they also needed banks for financing and business transactions. Not only does this long process include many specialized technologies, they also needed to improve all the steps in between so the tea can be exported. When you have products to export, your nation gains money. At this time even during the war, we did not neglect to improve the tea business. Because of all this involvement, the bank formed the China Tea Company. I became friends with several of their CEOs. Because I was in Jiangxi, they assigned me to form a branch of the Tea Company.

Taihe (meaning Peaceful and Prosperous) is a place like its name. The Japanese seldom bombed us so we had a normal peaceful life. In front of Mr. Liu's mansion, there was a huge field. We hired all the sedan carriers, when they were not working, to level this field and make it into a tennis court. Because the whole country was in a state of war, the mayor of Taihe didn't think playing tennis was appropriate. So one day he came to see me, he beat around the bush telling me that sports like tennis should not be promoted. At that time, I was still young and I became upset and said during this time lots of folk songs mention students and teachers and the government make the sounds of playing mahjong. This mayor wanted to save face and after he heard me mentioning these folk songs, he changed his way of talking and said, it's better to play tennis than play mahjong. It used to be that Chinese said playing mahjong was chien guang, ren guang, tian guang--lose money, lose friends, lose time. After this, he didn't oppose tennis anymore. He even said, "When you travel to Xinlin cuen, there are newly built tennis courts." Tennis is my hobby and every time I move to a new place for a new job, I'm always thinking of ways to build a tennis court. If there is an old one, I usually have it refurbished. Some of my colleagues also liked to play tennis. So these years during the war, we had a pretty good life: you can work and also play tennis.

Besides the aforementioned tennis, we can also write poems. In Nanchang, there was a famous family named Wan. In this family, there were lots of famous poets. Some poems were compiled into books, quite famous in China. At that time, I wrote some poems to respond to whoever wrote poetry at that time and I put several in my auto-compilation.

1939 - age 38 Part 2

At this time, we received a telegram that said the National Department of Commerce was going to have a meeting in Chongqing for all the banks in the country. Our manager, Mr Chen, would go and I would be the acting manager in Nanchang. The first important action for me was to prepare to retreat. We had many employees and their families, everyone wanted to go first to retreat to safety. Our retreat destination was Ji'an. We only had two small boats; and from Nanchang to Ji'an is against the current of the river, it takes a much longer time. We had so many people and so little transportation, it was very hard to make arrangements. And also our bank had several team loyalties. Every team, especially in this wartime, was fighting each other. Not only within the bank but also from the outside provincial government, everyone was fighting against each other. I was an employee of the bank so I wanted to make fair assignments according to the importance of their function: whoever needed to start working first should go first, critical departments like accounting and operations. As for research and some other departments, they could go later. I knew there were several warehouses in Ji'an, so most of the families of the employees could stay there. There were several other arrangements made, most of the employees of our bank retreated without urgency, panic, and fighting. This was the first difficulty I resolved, so I gained the trust of my colleagues. I needed to stay in Nanchang to finish the work of retreating, so I was the last one to go to Ji'an. I needed to supervise all the packing of important documents and property and make sure it was all loaded onto two big trucks. Before I left, I went to the provincial government to take a look and there was my friend, Mr Yang. He had several boxes of books that he wanted to take with him but his car was already full. I gave him some space in our big trucks so he could retain his library. He was very grateful for that. For many years, he had been doing research inside the country and outside and had collected a lot of important documents and books that he didn't want to abandon. He was extremely grateful. 

[After I asked if she had ever met Mr. Yang, my mom remembers having the piano in the living room in Taiwan, so many people would visit, she always had a good excuse to not practice.]

To curtail the advance of the Japanese army, after we drove to Ji'an, they purposely destroyed the road to prevent the Japanese troops from moving closer. Destroying the road needed a lot of labor. At the time, they had to hire a lot of civilian labor. Most the laborers had to be paid first before they worked. This job was supposed to be done by the city government of Nanchang, so they went to the Jiangxi provincial government for help. They wanted to loan the money from our bank. Most of the people working in our bank, accounting and financing, already had left for Ji'an. There were difficulties financing because the provincial government didn't have money. There were a lot of difficult procedures for this funding. Finally on March 24, they secured the money to pay the laborers and, after our car passed the point, the laborers started to break the road. 

[Mom: When we went to Taiwan in 1946, a year after the end of the war, there was so much rubble everywhere, it was awful.]

At that time, most of our employees and their families had arrived in Ji'an. We had a few at the end, me and several other people. Because I was solo, I stayed upstairs above the branch bank with some service people who did my laundry and cooked my meals. I was pretty comfortable. However, before we left Nanchang, I didn't sleep well for several days and was extremely exhausted. But when I arrived in Ji'an, all of sudden I was able to relax. Unfortunately, at that time, I got a high fever and my right leg became red and swollen. The doctor diagnosed me with a bacterial infection in my lymph nodes from a cut in my foot. This bacteria had reached my bloodstream. I needed medication and rest. The doctor said I would never be totally cured because this bacteria was everywhere. As soon as I had a cut, I would be infected. The only thing to prevent infection was to not have any broken skin. The thing is, I love to play tennis. Sometimes, I would run fast and break some skin and be infected again. I had recurrence of this fever and infection several times. Even after the war when we lived in Taiwan, I still had recurrences of this infection. Until I went to Japan and worked at the embassy, there was a doctor in Tokyo who recommended I use ointment on my foot, some kind of medicated lotion. From then on, I applied it and prevented infection by keeping my skin moisturized. Every night I would use this cream and thus never had this infection again. 

[Most relatives called my grandparents Bayiniang and Bayifu, her generational order, asking for money, even though she was the 2nd daughter, she was the 8th cousin. Puopuo grew up in Yangzhou even though her family was from Anhui. "My mom said my dad always made a lot of money for the banks, not for himself." My grandma grew up rich and ever since her time in Yangzhou, nothing compared. Whereas my grandpa grew up poor so he always said as long as there's food, it's good.]

1938 - age 37 Part 3; 1939 - age 38 Part 1

1938 - age 37 continued

Because of war, transportation was difficult. One of my colleagues, Mrs Xu, and I were in Longyo at the time, and her husband wanted to return to Longyo. Mrs Xu requested a ride. It was so hard to rent cars during the time, they were very grateful. After I dropped them off, I went back to Nanchang. One day, Mrs Xu was riding with another manager, Mr Chen, and unfortunately, his car had an accident, they drove off a bridge and died. It was very tragic. During this time, I was traveling around Zhejiang to several places and on December 5, I arrived in Wenzhou. On December 8, from Wenzhou to Lixue. On December 18, I went back to Lixue. A lot of the time, because of the Japanese invasion, many of the roads were broken or closed and there was no way to get around. Many times, we had to wait for a car or for a road to open. We had to wait in little private boats for whatever was available. We would sit through the night. Many times, we stayed on a little boat and played mahjong by candlelight to pass the time until dawn. This was our old-fashioned Chinese life. On the 19th of December, I arrived in Wenzhou and there Mr Chan needed to go to Shanghai. So I bought some small presents and asked him to bring them to my wife as Christmas presents for my family. On the 23rd, one of my colleagues Mr Yang telegraphed me saying to urgently return to Nanchang. So on the 25th, I traveled from Wenzhou to Nanchang via Qingtian but our car broke down so I had to wait in a hotel there. On the 26th, they sent another car for me. By the end of the year, I had traveled all around Jiangxi and ended the year back in Nanchang.

1939 - age 38

Last year, at the end of December, the bank at Jiangxi urged me to go to Nanchang because Yumin Bank wanted to hire a manager. The Yumin Bank organizational structure was more or less the same as every other bank. Usually, the provincial government assigned board members and the board would hire the manager. Under the manager, there was a secretary, accounting, business, etc. This year, there was a position open for a manager. Because this position has good pay and a lot of power, many people competed for it. But most of the candidates were rejected by the General Manager, MrWei Chen. Mr Wei Chen was a Zhejiang Central Bank CEO and highly reputable. He was recruited to GM by Jiangxi's governor. Even though Governor Shong Shihui hired Mr. Chen, concerning banking business, he was not indebted to him. Any governor-recommended candidates were also rejected by Mr Chen. No one knew how to deal with him. A lot of his subordinates tried to find out what kind of person Mr Chen was looking for. Anyone who did not fulfill his criteria, regardless of recommendation, he would reject. He was a fair person and was not swayed by VIP opinions. He wanted to hire truly qualified people. There were several people recommended by powerful persons. He rejected every one of them. Finally, someone recommended me. At that time, I had already left Jiangxi and returned to Shanghai. So again, I left Shanghai for Wenzhou to Nanchang. I had formerly worked with Mr Chen on a committee, though I was not a close friend. He made a statement: "I might want to interview Xu Junzhou." So my friends at the bank urged me to return. On January 10, I received a letter from Yumin Bank saying they had an opening in the management position: "We need someone who's familiar with financing and banking. We want you to come here and take this position." So I took the position and with the help of many of my friends at the bank, fortunately I did a fairly good job.

During the war, even though Nanchang was pretty close to the front line, transportation by water or road was very difficult, so our army and the Japanese were at a stalemate holding position. Nanchang was not involved in the war so markets were pretty stable and prosperous. My job at Yumin Bank became more familiar and I didn't feel as much pressure. During non-working hours, the young workers in all branches of the government and banking formed tennis teams. They used tennis courts to practice and held tournaments between different teams. Sometimes, when you hit the ball, the sound fell among the noise of the cannons. Because we were used to the firing sounds, we didn't mind them at all. Sometimes after we played, everyone would go to the newly built bathhouse for showers. We had a pretty nice life. Unfortunately, in mid-March, the Japanese planned to attack Nanchang. Everyone panicked and the government gave orders for all the organizations to evacuate to safer areas. During war, we had to reorganize and retreat, reorganize and retreat. 

1938 - age 37 Part 2

My main job at Nanchang from China Industrial Bank is already finished. Several investigations of properties were all done. Here they formed a special committee to adjust the rice and grain. They wanted me to be the director of this committee while at the same time the CEO of the bank came to Hankou and I went to Hankou to report to him about what's going on in Nanchang. He told me from now on whatever places that I need to go, I can contact the main office. When I stayed in Nanchang, my room and board were all taken care of by the bank. 

Here I need to insert a private incident, that is my wife's mother, my mother-in-law, her maiden name is Cai, she's from Nanchang and she has a sister we call Yimu who always lived in Nanchang. This aunt, she established a school for teaching poor families' women to make socks and towels. Because of this school, she became famous, everybody knew about her. My wife wrote me a letter saying I needed to go pay a visit but I didn't have time to go yet and she came to visit me on June 15. I feel kind of bad. The next day, I went back to pay a visit back but she was not in so I left a note. This is a report of my private life. 

On June 29, I went to Jian to explore the area. At this time, my hometown of Huangmei was already occupied by Japan. And as far as Jioujiang, we were still unaware of the war situation. In August, we learned that the dyke around my hometown broke so there was flooding. The only thing good was there was no fighting. [My mom says there's a saying 'tian zai ren huo' meaning 'natural disaster, human curse'.] Nanchang, because it was close to the front lines, many people started to flee. Under these conditions, I contacted the main office and received instructions to go to Hankou or Hongkong. I decided to go to Hongkong because it would probably be easier to return to Shanghai from Hongkong. By September 5, I had arranged everything in Nanchang. Form Nanchang I went to Jian. My luggage was sent from Nanchang to Jian. There were still many things that couldn't be transported that I left in Jian. Everything I could carry, I brought. After traveling several days over rail and bus. Until September 11, I arrived in Guangdong Hepingxian. On September 13, I arrived in Guangzhou but our car broke down and air raids started. Because the car has no power, everything was dark. (Mom: Because of these little towns, I don't know the geography.) When I arrived in Huizhou, there was a hotel called Xihu (West Lake), this Xihu was about the same as Hanzhou's Xihu. Before the car was repaired, I hired a little boat to tour Huizhou's Xihu and wrote a poem I lost so I didn't put it in the book. On the evening of the 14th, we arrived in Guangzhou. I sent a telegram to Diqing to tell her I arrived safely in Guangzhou. I took a train to Hongkong the following day and stayed in Six Countries Hotel Room 62. When I arrived in HK, the CEO of China Industrial Bank, Mr. Fu also arrived from Chongqing. He decided to let me return to Shanghai so I bought a ticket on a British liner called Reqing. On Oct 2 I arrived in Shanghai and came to Gubogongyu. It is one year and fifty-five days since last year August that I left SH.

This time, I came back to SH but most of the Central Office staff were in HK. So there were a lot of things no one could make decisions. So it was almost as if I was on vacation. Two of my friends Mr. Yin and Mr. Zhen, they appreciate me so much because I arranged everything that they put me in charge of in Nanchang. Mr. Zhen said we don't' have anything to pay you back. The Lord give you a good son. This time I went back to SH, my wife got pregnant was very coincidental. [Mom: when we were in Taipei, this Mr. Yin lived in our house for quite a while. I didn't know the relationship then, must be very good friends with Gonggong.] [Here's a long description of traveling to places and doing things, during the war. I don't even know where to skip to. So long. Oy yo yo. Hen chang.]

Since there's no person in charge but I do not want to sit there doing nothing, so I can have some freedom to move and I decided to go to Wenzhou, also in Zhejiang, my friend bought me a ticket and I took the boat. On the 26th I arrived in Wenzhou. The manager of Wenzhou bank greeted me. I stayed in the banks' accommodations. Then I went to Lixui, I visited the China Vegetable Oil factory. Also, we discussed tong yo (sycamore oil--used for lamps) the governor gave us special permission to export because you have to have exports to bring in money to the province. So I did something instead of sitting idle. On Nov 3, we were recommended to go to Yuhexian, a small city in Zhejiang. There, they had a factory to make military equipment. They're making ammunition and guns for military use. The factory had lots of skilled technicians and experts. They had very modern facilities. Then, on Nov 5, we went back to Lixui to report to the government especially about the export of tong yo. The government thanked me for Lixui service, gave me the good treatment, I accepted this because this place is pretty safe from the war and also easier to return to Shanghai. Because I still have lots of luggage at Jian, I decided to travel to Jiangxi and the governor gave me transportation so I can return to Nanchang. On the 16th of November, I left Lixui and arrived Longchuen, the mayor Mr. Tang gave me a present of a sword. (And I brought this sword to Taiwan. I still have it with me.) On the 17th, from Longchuen went to Fujian. ... On the 18th, I arrived in Nanchang. This time, the Japanese were pretty close to Nanchang and they just settled on the other side of the river and hadn't crossed the river yet. Our army on this side. Everybody sitting there, every once in a while, you could hear the canon blow. I stayed in Nanchang for two days and on the 20th I went to Jian and retrieved my luggage. On the 23rd, I returned to Nanchang and stayed three days and made arrangements. On the 26th I went back to Zhejiang.