1936: The final paragraphs of an eventful year

1936 - age 35 continued

The main reason Secretary Wu invited me to Hanzhou was that in 1932 I had suggested a plan to improve the livelihood of the farmers. He thought it was a plan that was feasible. This idea came from my Business College professor who had a theory about co-op farming and I did research on British plans of co-ops. I also made a lot of references from Japanese agricultural improvements. This time when I came to Zhejiang province, my main focus was building warehouses to store agricultural product. What was involved in this plan was to choose a town or village where there are more farmers and a bigger area for growing crops. We would invite the leaders of these towns and villages, the ruling class knowledgeable, to a conference to explain what the government plan was for improving their livelihood. Also, after we conferenced with these leaders, we would choose a piece of land as a pilot. We chose a place that was not susceptible to flooding and had access by road for means of transportation. We asked the provincial government to collect money from the villages and towns and the provincial government would supplement any needed amounts of money. On our pilot property, we would build a big warehouse to store the agricultural products. There were a lot of architectural requirements for the warehouse: safe, secure from rain and flooding. This warehouse would be a showpiece to demonstrate to the farmers that their product would be stored safely. They would become members to use the warehouse and they would pay a membership fee. At peak production, the price would drop. With the warehouse, they wouldn't have to sell at harvest. They can control the price much better. And if some members had a special need, they could take a loan from the co-op. With this provincial government plan, the livelihood of the farmers could be improved and they wouldn't have to be poor year-round. For the management of the system, there were committees but the management would be chosen by the farmers. We launched this plan in Hanzhou and gradually spread to the rest of the province. Because it needed to be proved successful first before the rest of the province wanted to adopt it. The rest of the province had a lot of positive response. So much that the neighboring provides of Jiangxi wanted to do similar things. 

This year was very busy with Shu-dong's illness and the birth of Shu-Shih and also traveling back and forth between Hanzhou and Shanghai. Even though I was very busy, I still did a lot of research on my college major: currency and financing. My old friend, Mr. Lei, he's a very patriotic person. He established a new research group called Building New China and also a monthly magazine telling about what the group was doing. In this group and magazine, they published a lot of people's articles and plans. Mr. Liu, Mr. Ma, Mr. Xu, Mr. Lo, and also they asked me to be involved. Most of the articles I wrote were about currency and financing. Mr. Lei himself published a lot of books he compiled or edited. Inside one of his publications said that during the twenty-five years of China's recent history, since the Opium War, China is experiencing one difficulty after another. And Dongbei (east-north, Manchuria) was occupied by Japan. All the northern provinces were at war because the  Japanese were fighting to occupy the country. China had to experience all the turmoil of war, there was no time to do any building up or strengthen the country. In his publications, he always called the people to be zealous for patriotism, we can't let this beat us, we need to unite and fight. The traditional Chinese philosophy says that every single person is responsible for the life of the country. Every little person has some responsibility. Not just a small group. He wrote a lot of these kinds of articles, calling people to wake up and do their part. I wrote about financing during this unusual time of chaos and wart. I wrote a book mainly about inflation, currency, credit, and management. This little book I brought to Taiwan and I treasure it. 

[During Gonggong's time, most Chinese went through unsettling: fleeing from the enemy or no peace. Like my dad, they kept on moving from place to place. Hard for families to do research and things like that.]

This year, I traveled between Shanghai and Hanzhou many many times. Besides the room and board, and transportation in Zhejiang province was paid by the government, the rest of my traveling expenses were paid by myself. Because when I was sent to Hanzhou, it was a temporary basis, so I wasn't paid by the bank. For my work in Zhejiang, I wasn't paid. Until December of this year, Mr. Wu, my boss, asked the government payroll to give me some compensation for my expenses. The one who brought the money to me was Mr. Li. He said, "Mr. Qu, I saw you were a very disciplined, upright person. You would rather be mistreated for a year than to complain. But now Mr. Wu has done the right thing and not taken advantage of his employees. Now, you have the money to have a nice new year. 

This year, in December, there was a big event: Jian Jiesi was captured in Xi'an. [My dad was born during this time. This Xi'an Incident changed the whole military situation of China.] If you want to research this incident, there is a lot of writing on this so I won't go into detail. One thing we were very grateful for was that Jian Jiesi was in danger for quite a while. Every morning, he very calmly read his bible and prayed. On Christmas Day, Madame Jiang flew to Xi'an and brought him back to Nanjing safely. That morning, he was reading the bible Jeremiah 31:22 How long will you waver, O faithless daughter? For the LORD has created a new thing on the earth: a woman encircles a man.” I believe Acts 27:25 So take heart, men, for I have faith in God that it will be exactly as I have been told. The whole nation celebrated his return, this was a big turning point in our nation and a big turning point in my biography. 

[The communist version of Xi'an Incident is much different, obviously; history is written by winners.]

1936 - age 35 cont: My mother is born

1936 - age 35 continued

The first time I planned to go to Hanzhou, the departure and arrival times were set. But just before I needed to leave, Shudong started to have a fever. I thought he was catching a cold. I asked Diqing to cover him with more blankets to help him sweat it out. I thought after he sweated he would be fine, and I deaprted. We didn't know that if a child already has a fever and you make him warmer it gives them seizures. Diqing asked for help from Bao Cenliang, a famous physician. Also, she asked me to return to Shanghai immediately. I had just arrived in Hanzhou, "and you want me to return." Fortunately, I didn't need to because Dr Bao gave him some medicine which helped Shudong come out of danger.

The second time I went to Hanzhou, I stayed in a club belonging to the Infrastructure Department. It was by Xihu (West Lake), located in a nice place. Because the secretary gave special orders, all the people gave me excellent service, they did everything to please me. On Saturday, because of the weekend, many people came to Xihu to enjoy the scenery. There were so many people, only late at night did people return home. During the day, I was busy working for the department and I didn't have time to look around. After I went to bed, I woke up in the middle of the night and looked out the window. There was a very nice reflection off the lake. A thin fog hovered over the lake. With the moonlight and everything it was so nice and quiet. The beauty of the lake was even better than it was during the day. Spontaneously, I got up and asked the manager to hire someone to row a boat for me. There was a boat that belonged to the department so I didn't need to rent a boat but I did need someone to row it. He took me around the lake in the middle of the night. We passed by the bridges and mountains that were famous at Xihu. We went through all the tourist spots including the Qing dynasty governor's temple. This temple was usually inaccessible by people during the day. But I took special notice because this governor was from Huangmei. Once every three years, the government holds a national exam. This Governor Xuai got the highest marks in the preliminary exam and third in finals. There was a prime minister at the end of the Qing dynasty Zhen Guofan. He called them the Honorable Foursome, along with Xuai the other three were all very famous. Governer Xuai did a lot of good for Zhejiang, so the people set up a temple for him. When I was a child, when we started learning at home, I already knew Xuai Tanhua's (3rd place) name. Now at night, I was seeing his temple, I felt some connection with him. In the past, there was a poet who wrote: Some famous people, when you read their writing you feel close because you came from the same place. I took Governor Xuai as my close relative. For this trip, I wrote a set of four poems called Xihu Yan Fan.

Diqing was pregnant again but during the pregnancy she became ill and depended on Dr Bao several times for medicine. So she was fine until June 14 at 7:15 AM when our second child was born. With her first child, labor was so long and we had called the doctor early. So this time, we thought we should not call the doctor too early. We didn't realize this baby girl would be born so fast. Before the doctor came, she had already come out and cried so loud. None of us knew what to do. I took a blanket and covered the baby so she wouldn't catch a cold. After delivery, we called the doctor. We were so nervous. Fortunately, the doctor came very fast and she took care of the baby and the mother. Both were fine and we thanked God for his mercy. This is our first daughter and we named her Shushi and her personality is quiet and nice, just like my mom. Chinese people say you inherit traits from one generation above.

1935-1936: Bank reserves

1935 - age 34 Part 3

In May, I went to Cangshu from Shanghai, passing by Suzhou and went to all these tourist spots. A branch manager came to pick me up. We rode in a boat through the water ways. We went to all the places I needed to survey. In the evening, they served a dinner with the famous dish Beggar's Chicken. The story goes that many years ago there was a beggar in Cangshu. One day, somehow he got a chicken but he had no way of cooking the chicken. So what he did was use a lot of mud and water to coat the chicken with the feathers on. He built a fire to cook it. After it was done, he peeled off the mud and the feathers came off with the mud so he could eat the meat and it was very delicious. After this incident was known, the restaurateurs copied this cooking method and called it beggar's chicken. This is the famous dish of this place, and I had the good chance to taste it. After several days of my survey, I wrote my report and gave it to the chairman of the board, Mr Fu. After a while, the branch manager came to the headquarters and proved the survey and my suggestions for improvement were accurate and feasible.

I was assigned to this currency improvement research committee to work and I also had a position in the Chinese Industry and Business Bank. So now I had two jobs. Also, every month, the Central Bank had an economic research publication. I was still in charge of reporting. When I was in college, my major was in currency and banking. At that time, there was a person Mr Ma. He was a very famous scholar in this area and he was once Beijing University's president. (Unfortunately, he changed allegiances to the Communist Party and was tortured to death by the Communist Party.) He wrote a lot of articles on the shortcomings of the Chinese financial systems and made proposals for improvement. He wrote a lot of theses. He usually said that Chinese commercial banks had too weak of funding. In the studying of the cash reserve ratios, he showed some are steady and others are imbalanced and predict bankrupcy. Mr Ma wrote a lot about and did a lot of research about this ratio. I was also involved in a lot of the research and wrote a lot about these studies. When I went to Taiwan, I brought all my writings from Shanghai. In 1980, I compiled all my writings into a book called Compilation of Articles about Currency and Banking. 


1936 - age 35

This year, Shudong turned two years old and Diqing became pregnant again. When she was six months pregnant, she ate water chestnuts. We found out later that pregnant women should not eat water chestnuts. But she had eaten them and had severe abdominal pain and could not move. She had to go to the hospital. We lived on the third floor. Usually, we just climbed up and down the stairs. But now, Diqing could not move, so I carried her downstairs. We went first to the famous Fuming Hospital and the head of the hospital was very nice and came to examine her himself and prescribed pain killer injections and said she should have surgery. But Diqing would not agree. They were at odds and couldn't compromise. After a long time, we went to a Chinese-medicine doctor Bao for help. Mr Bao is very good in his medical knowledge. After examining her, he said to take Chinese medicine and prescribed the medicine and we went to the pharmacy to get the medication and returned home. I carried her upstairs. Fortunately, after several days, just as Dr Bao predicted, she was fine. Since then, I don't negate the effectiveness of Chinese medicine. 

In the province of Zhejiang, there were some political changes. The central government appointed Mr Huang as governor of the province. He was from Guangxi and the military. He and Wu Tingyi were very good friends, as close as brothers. So, Mr Huang recommended Mr Wu as Secretary of Infrastructure. Mr Wu was in Liouzhou in charge of a project to test water usage and safety in agriculture. Three years earlier, he had invited me to work there and I didn't go, as previously stated. This time, Mr Wu came in person to Zhejiang and was determined to have a lot of projects in Zhejiang. He needed people to survey and plan. He originally knew I didn't go to Guangxi because I stayed at Shanghai Central Bank to work. And he was an old friend of Mr Fu, chairman of the board. So he asked Mr Fu to have part of my work be to help him in Hanzhou. Mr Fu, because I already had job in the China Business and Industry Bank, and didn't have a job at the Central Bank, approved Mr Hu's request. Because of this extra work, I needed to arrange my time. In order for my work and duties at home, I scheduled every Friday for going to Hangzhou, worked Saturday and Sunday in Zhejiang, and would come back to Shanghai on Monday. If there was a special request, I could stay there one more day and come back a day later.