1935: No more poems

1935 - age 34 Part 2

With such condition of currency, establishing the industry and commerce of the country was impossible. So the government decided to overhaul. The first thing was to use the central bank and department of finance to establish an overhaul research committee on currency. Hired with top salaries was Mr Cen Jingtao as chairman. He was Cantonese and very famous and had a lot of accomplishments in this area. He has another name: Ren Sen. Everyone respectfully called him Ren Lao (elder Ren). This person was very thorough and had an accurate and broad view of the whole picture. His research work was also very accurate and to-the-point. They also invited advisers from the United State and United Kingdom. I was assigned to serve on this committee and benefited greatly from working there. Everything I learned at the commerce university in Japan was put to good use. My work earned approval and praise from Ren Lao and the foreign advisers. My actual work was to audit all the books and compile articles and documents. It was very hard work, but my program was put into actual practice; the government used what I proposed and it worked well and there was a good response from the field. Privately, I was delighted as a civilian to save the country in this way. 

The currency improvements mainly were collective preparation and uniform distribution. They set a date for the launch of the program so all the various little banks stopped printing their own currencies. They collected outstanding currency and only distributed central bank currency. In order to print money, there had to be some value backup stored. They put it all in the central bank. In this way, a lot of the little banks could not afford to print their own. Most of the little banks went bankrupt. Many of the people who worked in these soon-to-collapse banks left and went somewhere else to find new jobs. Even a very famous person of the big banks Mr. Liu, chairman of the board, had to quit and find a new job. 

The central bank, in order to seriously execute these currency improvements, specially hired Mr Fu. He was a director of the economic research institute and they wanted him to chair the new board of directors in the China Industry and Business Bank. Mr Zou was hired as Chief Executive. After Mr Fu went to serve as chairman of the board, they hired Mr Kong to be head of the research institute.

... [boring complicated banking stuff my mom skipped]

At this time, one of the heads recommended me for work at the China Industry and Business Bank. This bank had branches in Nanjing, Tianjing, Guangzhou, Hankou, Nancang, and Wuhu. Also, in a suburb of Shanghai, called Cangshu, was another branch and warehouses. Cangshu was supposed to be a fertile land with a lot of potential for development. Our chairman of the board valued Cangshu. He specially assigned me as envoy and I was glad to go because Cangshu has a lot of history. And on the mountain there are graves of the famous disciples of Confucius, Zilu and Yenyou. This is why it was a tourist attraction. More recently, there were legendary stories about Chen and Liou. There was a famous pagoda, Iron Harp and Bronze Sword. I could visit all these spots during my survey.

1935: Field workers

Hindered by Rain Song by Qing dynasty poet Kong Xianyi

No rain, pity the field workers,
With rain, fret about visitors;
Don't mind difficult travel,
For the farmer to be happy.


1935 - age 34 Part 1

This year, on February 24, Shudong turned one year old. According to a general custom called Zuazou, we did the following ritual. In this ritual, you set the baby on a flat surface. In front of him, and to his left, right, front, and back, you display articles: some are for literature, some for craft, antiques, and daily household objects. When you put the baby among these objects, you let the baby pick up whatever. Whatever he picks up, you figure out his interests and the potential of the baby. We were told it's kind of scientific. Shudong's temperament was active. He picked up something craft related, an instrument. This might explain why he later on went to Taiwan University and Minnesota University to study agricultural engineering and got a PhD in that field, as if it correctly correlated from when he turned one. In those days, there were very few toys for children's development. I had a little alarm clock made in Germany. I bought it in Tokyo and it was very sturdy and accurate. I had been using it for many years. This alarm clock was his toy. When he was a little older, he took apart this clock and examined all the pieces as if doing some kind of mechanical research.

At that time, there were many warlords occupying the whole country. Jiang Jieshi wanted to unite the country. The government of the republic was established and everybody wanted to improve the country in all areas. In the economy and commerce areas, the most crucial urgent problem was to establish currency because at that time our country had no currency system. The mint and bill press was a big power. Usually, this power fell to the warlords, whoever had the most power in an area, and there was no united system or standard. Every province had their own currency and bills. It was a big mess. There were lots of counterfeit and much confusion with multiple exchange rates. It needed a lot of improvement except for two banks, one called China Bank and the other Transportation-Communication Bank. Because they were established for a long time and large, most people trusted these two banks. Besides these, there was Four Banks and Zhejiang.

Women's work

Seedling Planting Maids by Ching dynasty poet Chen Wensu (1771-1843)

Morning, see the seedling planting maids,
Dusk, see the seedling planting maids.
Rain fall, don't think cold,
Sun strong, don't think hot.
Two legs like duck gull,
All day in the wet lands.
Seedlings from one acre wide,
Spaced into ten acres about.
Water low, worry seedling whither,
Water high, fear seedlings rot.
Highland already threshing wheat,
Lowland still growing millet.
April gives way to May,
More prayers for dragon rain.
Infant set on the roadside,
Have kid, no time to nurse.
Now believe, plate's food,
Grain by grain, hard work and suffering.