Our village was called in ancient times "Xu Jia Zhuang" (literally the "hamlet of the Xu clan"). About three centuries ago, Lee Jiang, the founder of the Lee clan, came and settled in this village. I am an 18th generation descendant of Lee Jiang. 80 to 90 percent of the villagers are of the Lee clan. My great grandfather was Lee Zhipu, my grandfather Lee Fengqi; my grandmother was from the village of Bai'an (literally "white riverbank"). My mother, with the surname of Ge, from the village of Guishigou (literally "precious stone gulch" or "gulch of turtle turned to stone"),  had five sons, in the chronological order of birth: Ruopu, Ruoying, Ruochen, Ruolin and myself Ruoyuan.

After  dividing with his brother Fenggang, my granduncle, the family assets left by their father Zhipu , my grandfather Fengqi bought a new lodging called Bayanyao (literally "eight eyes cave dwelling"). Both my grandfather and my granduncle had businesses in the Tianjin area and were financially secure. Every time they came home to visit from their businesses in Tianjin, they would carry a load of wares they procured in town on their "tuo jiao," sedan chair borne by two beasts of burden (horses or donkeys). They also bought farming land, for the exploitation of which they hired farm hands; they invested in a fabric dyeing shop in the town of Ershili Pu (literally "stage station at the 20 li mark", the village being a stage station about 20 li from the county seat in the Qing dynasty) in Pingyuan, Shangdong province. The shop was named Chang Du Long; the entire staff of the shop routinely returned to their respective homes in November (of the lunar calendar, same below) before the Spring Festival to replenish the fuel wood and food needed by their households before going back together to resume their work at the dyeing shop in February. In January our family would as usual invite the shop's manager and workers to a dinner and settle the pay and dividends with them. In good years, the earnings would be about 400 "silver dollars" and in bad years the earnings would be about 200 "silver dollars." Since my grandfather and my granduncle had their own separate households, this dinner to settle business accounts alternated between the two households.

The eldest son Lee Chunchen of my granduncle Fenggang practiced martial arts since childhood; I called him Da Shu ("senior uncle"). I called his second son Lee Zhenchen  Er Shu ("second uncle"). They lived together in a "courtyard," which we called Xia Yuan ("lower courtyard") and my grandfather's living quarters were called the Shang Yuan ("upper courtyard").

My grandfather Fengqi once took me (I was about 3 or 4 at the time) to a blacksmith working under the old pagoda tree in the village to pick up a kitchen cleaver left there for repair. We also sat for a while on a horizontal slab of wood in front of the village apothecary before sauntering home. My grandfather sporting a moustache had a kindly look and was once a "bao zhang" (semi-official person responsible for supervising about 100 households in the old Chinese administrative system). One day I came to the "kang" (heated platform in northern China serving as family bed) of our home and  Grandfather opened a drawer of the low table on the kang to take out a white medicinal vial for me to sniff and taste; it was so sweet and delicious. These were fragments of my memories of Grandfather.

My native village, called Xi Suo Huang, is nestled in a cluster of hills about 10 li wide in the south of the county town Pingding. South of the village squats the Nanshan ("southern hill"), at the peak of which one commanded a panoramic view of about 10 li all around. We are surrounded by mountains that rippled all the way to the far horizon; these are part of the middle section of the Taihang mountains. There is an old pagoda tree in the village, said to date from the Tang dynasty, that takes six adults linking hands to embrace. The tree stands to the right of the Niang Niang temple, with two wells lying below it. To its right sits the hall of ancestral worship of the Lee clan, where I had my schooling when a child. The village had about 300 households and one elementary school. (Crossed out by the author: "At the time there were no girl students, and our village did not boast any college graduate and the only equivalent of a college student was my father, who was a "xiu cai" (who passed the local entrance examination) of the defunct Qing dynasty.")

(Crossed out by author: "My uncle Chunchen's martial arts practice did not lead anywhere.") My father Shuochen, also known as Fuzhai, was admitted (after the local entrance examination of the defunct Qing dynasty) as successful candidate among the additional admission quota with the name of Biqing. He enjoyed reading history books and had interests in seal cutting, drawing and painting. For a time he was a teacher in the neighboring village of Li Lin Tou, but long suffering from gastrointestinal disorders, he was not able to hold a job since. By that time my elder brothers had grown up and found their livelihood, so they would not allow their elderly father to go out and work. My mother was very loving of the children and always humored her husband. She was a capable housewife and spared no effort for her children's well-being. Her bony, chapped fingers testified to her hard work. Even in that period of relative financial comfort in our household, my mother  did not choose to eat separately with her husband but shared the table with her daughters-in-law and others. Every time I saw it I felt like crying. Once when I came home from Taiyuan (sometime in the summer of 1929), the moment I entered the house gate I saw Mother sitting on a stone bench in the courtyard holding a grandchild (a nephew of mine). When she saw me her eyes immediately filled with tears and she couldn't talk because she was going to sob. She was then 58. I was so moved by it I cried for a long time sprawled on the kang bed. The following year (winter of 1930)  at work in Taiyuan I was shocked to learn that my mother had died suddenly (after going to the bathroom, she had a splitting headache and holding my father's hand she was unable to utter a word and died instantly. I think it could have been a case of cerebral hemorrhage or a ruptured aneurysm). By the time we, myself and my second elder brother, arrived home she was already placed in a funerary hall. We burst out crying and my father cried with us.

I had frail health and fell ill often as a child. When I was 5 or 6, I reached my hand into a stack of corn stalks and startled a litter of newborn mice; I was so scared I fell ill. Later I developed sores in my left armpit that refused to heal for almost a year.  Then I came down with typhoid fever and my mother held me in her arms for seven sleepless days and nights keeping me hydrated by feeding me water. My mother must have been physically and emotionally exhausted in taking care of this sickly child that I was. And yet I have not been able to repay enough her love and care. This has been a matter of eternal regret.

After my mother passed away our family's fortures underwent changes. My eldest brother, after graduating from the county high school, taught first at the elementary school in Shengmiao then at the elementary school in the village of Dong Suo Huang. His oldest son Sizong, was only five years my junior. His second son Yinzong, who later found work at a photography shop in Beiping (now called Beijing), wrote to me once in 1946, sending with it some photos.  His third son was Yangzong, his oldest daughter Yunrong died at the age of 17 from a disease of the uterus caused by tuberculosis. His second daughter was Qiurong. His wife nee Ge, from the village of Niu Wang Miao Gou, was a good housewife and cooked delicious food. She prepared all my father's meals. My eldest brother's first wife was from the village of Bei Zhuang, who died of tuberculosis after giving birth to Sizong; then my eldest brother married a woman from the village of Dong Gou, who also died of tuberculosis, leaving behind a daughter by the name of Yunrong (who died at 17 as mentioned above). Ge was my eldest brother's third wife.

At the time my second elder brother Ruoying worked at the society for National Salvation through Industrialization (founded by Shanxi's warlord Yan Xishan). He was the chief accountant at the Society's Members' Cooperative. When previously my third and fourth brothers got married, my second brother brought back from Taiyuan a lot of clothing items, fabrics, calligraphy and painting works. He was very nice to his elder and younger brothers and showed great respect and care for his parents. The family received much financial help from my second brother. His first marriage, with a woman from the village of Pan Shi Cun, did not produce any children; his second marriage, with a woman nee Wang from the village of Song Jia Zhuang, gave him his eldest daughter Furong; his later marriage with the sister of Yan Donghai of our village produced one son (nicknamed "little dog's paw") and one daughter.

My third elder brother Ruochen worked at the Yufeng private banking establishment in the city of Shimen. He was born with swollen feet. He was an excellent calligrapher in the cao shu (cursive script). He was meticulous and very particular about cleanliness. He got along well with his siblings. He married a woman nee Wei from the village of Zhuang Wo Cun, who gave birth to their eldest daughter Meirong and a son Chaozong. The wife died in 1945 from typhus fever in the Taiyuan Hospital after labor. My third brother wrote home asking for financial help to enable him to marry another woman, from -- county. They soon split up. I also chipped in to help him out.

My fourth elder brother Ruolin worked in a warehouse in Yuci, his wife died in childbirth with a stillborn baby. My fourth brother had a lazy temperament and soon left his job to live an idler's life at home. After my father passed away, my fourth brother became an opium addict. After the five brothers split up the inheritance and set up separate households, my fourth brother soon depleted his share. During China's war of resistance against Japanese aggression, he dropped dead working as a coolie in Lancun, Taiyuan. At the time I was working under my second brother in Taiyuan.

The eldest son (Ruomin) of my elder uncle, who lived in the "lower courtyard" with his family, went into business in Tianjin and the second son (Ruoting) died young. My elder uncle's eldest daughter Ruohe (one year my senior) married a Geng Xingfu from the county town. The wife of my elder uncle could not straighten her back due to illness and had difficulty walking. Ruoju, the eldest son of my "second uncle" (Zhenchen) was also in business. After the death of his wife my "second uncle" married a woman from the village of Song Jia Zhuang, who gave birth to a son (Ruoxuan). The above was a brief account of what happened in our families after Mother's death.

Close to five hundred people attended my mother's funeral. The solemn funereal rituals lasted for three days. My mother's honorific posthumous plaque was formally placed in the Lee clan's family temple. It was the winter of 1930, my mother was 59. My father was 58, I was 22, my fourth brother 25, my third brother 29, my second brother 33 and my eldest brother 36.

I was born on February 25 of the first year of the Xuantong era of the Qing dynasty (1909). The imperial house was on its last legs. At the time my mother lived in Dong Yao ("east cave-style room"). As a child I always remembered seeing a colored page of a calendar, hanging on the wall of that room, showing Emperor Xuantong held in the lap of the Prince Regent (his father) in the ceremony marking his ascension to the throne. I remember an evening when Father came home and picked me up to climb on the kang bed to show me the calligraphy and painting works on the wall; my mother wore a green dress on that occasion. I remember one day my eldest brother came home from the county town, where he was attending a school, placed a fabric umbrella outside a window; he was wearing a straw Panama hat. I also remember an aunt (mother's sister) coming to see me; she was in the habit of chewing the tea leaves left in the teacup after the tea was drunk (my aunt was older than my mother, she was married to a merchant from the village of Miao Gou Cun). I remember a servant maid from Yizhou, Hebei province, who would tell us stories when we sat outside in the evening to cool off from the heat. These are the only things I could still recall from my childhood days, the rest is a blank.

I started my schooling at the village elementary school at age 6. My eldest brother happened to be a teacher there, followed by Yang Haifeng, Jiao Liantong and Dou Luyi. At first we were taught children's classics such as San Zi Jing (Three Character Classic), Bai Jia Xing ( Hundred Family Surnames), Daxue (The Great Learning, one of the "Four Books" in Confucianism attributed to one of Confucius' disciples, Zengzi) and Zhongyong (The Doctrine of the Mean). A few years later those readers were replaced by Chinese language Books 1 to 8. I still remember Lesson 1 of Book 1, which spoke about man, foot, hand, knife and ruler. Then followed books 1 to 8 of "Baihua" (Written vernacular Chinese); lesson 1 of book 1 dealt with the numbers 1 and 2, earth, cows and sheep. Among the teachers of the Chinese language, Mr. Yang Haifeng excelled in calligraphy, Jiao Liantong specialized in singing and Dou Luyi offered unique insights on Lunyu (The Analects of Confucius). Among fellow students, I had a close friend in Lee Langao, who was one generation above me in the Lee clan. He was gifted in calligraphy. A few years before the start of the War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression, he and I often did things together in Taiyuan. Unfortunately he died in the early days of the War, becoming one of its casualties.

One day in school, I felt inexplicably clear-headed and sharp in perception. It was about 3 in the afternoon and we were reciting in our seats in the school building. Amid the chant-like recitation of the class, I closed my book and started daydreaming. The sun was shining and a balmy breeze was blowing through the village; roosters and dogs of the village responded to each other's calls. While we were not exactly living in halcyon days, we enjoyed an enviable serenity. My untrammeled thoughts seemed to travel away from the school to far horizons. I was wondering where I would be later when I left the school and had to look around for a livelihood. Wouldn't I then miss this serene life in my home village? That moment, that day remained etched in my mind and the memory stayed so fresh I felt a need to record it here. 

Our village was backward at the time. There was little arable land and poverty was endemic. It did not boast a single college graduate; girls' education was unheard of and not a single girl went to school. The school borrowed our clan temple to use as classroom. The pupils were responsible for bringing their own low desks, which were placed on top of the heated kang platform and the pupils would sit cross-legged at their respective desks to study. The village is nestled in the hills and does not have much flat land, so for sports activities the pupils had to go to the open space in front of the open-air theater stage abutting the Guandi Temple near the entrance of the village. The school had no financial means to acquire any school equipment

The genealogy book of our clan, which had grown very large and developed numerous branches, had not been brought up to date for a long time, until my father and my eldest brother decided to take the matter in their hands and the updated version was finally published under their stewardship.

The land in our village was very infertile and most arable land was on terraced hills. Harvest was often poor due to either drought or waterlogging. Coal and iron ores were plenty in our region but extraction technology was backward; with coal and steel prices depressed, potential investors stayed away from the industry. Another source of income for our village was service in commercial establishments, i.e. people traveling from our village to the provinces of Shandong and Hebei to find work, with particular concentration in the dyeing business, and sending remittances home. The two performances of traditional Chinese opera in mid-January (part of the Spring Festival celebrations) and the activities of worshipping the mountain god and the associated parade (with acrobatic performers etc.) on February 2 (on the lunar calendar) were predominantly funded by these merchants of the dyeing houses.

Once past December 8 on the lunar calendar, people started getting tense and excited at the prospect of the coming Spring Festival. Days before that, my mother would have made new quilted coats for us in preparation for the Festival. Toward the middle of December, cooks were asked to prepare a list of food items required for the Festival, which would be procured in town ahead of time. On December 15 and 16, cooks were invited to our home to make sacrificial items to be used in ancestral worship during the Festival, sometimes these included also the vegetarian and non-vegetarian worship food (called "xia guo" or food for the lower table) needed for the Lantern Festival in mid-January. On December 22, the couplets and food devoted to the painted icon of "zao shen" (the Kitchen God), such as "tang gua" ("sugar melon," made from maltose in the shape of a melon, to appease the kitchen god, who is rising up to heaven the following day to report to the Yu Huang Da Di, the god of gods, on each household's merits and demerits of the ending year) and "big green beans" to be used the next day when the kitchen god will be sent up to heaven. The following week would be more hectic, with the purchase of red paper on which to write propitiatory couplets to be pasted at either side of the main doors, with another inscription on the lintels. A red poster with written on it a big character "Fu" ("good fortune") would be pasted on every screen wall. Small couplets also adorned the tables devoted to the gods of heaven and earth. On December 27 and 28, other Festival articles like joss sticks, sacrificial sheets of paper, firecrackers and colored paper celestial horses were bought for use on the eve of the lunar New Year to invite the God of Wealth into one's household, and for morning and evening incense burning rituals observed from January 1 to 5. Lanterns were made with color paper as shades and lit up with "vegetable oil" at night and hung at every worship table and on the "flower wall" (decorated wall). On December 26 and 27, a major clean-up was undertaken in every household, with all furniture wiped down, all brass hardware on armoires, all pewterware and the incense holders and candlesticks before the gods' icons burnished. By the New Year Eve, carbon sticks (called "big dark fellows") adorned with red paper strips would be planted in front of every household, said to ward off evil spirits. On New Year's Eve the women folks would made dumplings and the men would keep vigil until midnight when the gods would come to render blessings. After the kids went to sleep the parents put "ya sui qian" ("coins to ward off sui, an evil spirit that harms children") under the kids' pillows. A tent would be set up in the courtyard over the painted icons of the various gods, with sacrificial items placed in front of each. A big iron pot containing cypress leaves would be set up with kindling underneath, which would be lit at midnight, the time to welcome the gods, sending up flames and emitting a crackling sound. The kids would gather around the big flame and set off firecrackers, adding to the festive atmosphere. At midnight firecrackers  went off in unison across the village and the air would be filled with the exhilarating smell of powder and burning cypress leaves and the play of lights and shadows created by the lanterns and flames added zest to the festivities.

After eating the dumplings on the first day of the New Year, the members of the household would come and kneel before the ancestral tablet first, then they would kneel before their parents to wish them a prosperous New Year. After that, my eldest brother would lead us on a round of well-wishing in the village. The first to receive a visit was the household occupying the "lower courtyard," where we would kowtow to their ancestral tablet and our "senior uncle" and "second uncle." Then we would do the same with those clan members who shared an ancestor with us within five generations; last came the other clan members and friends in the village.

On the first day of the New Year, the use of scissors was forbidden in the house, for scissors were associated with splitting up; sweeping the floor was also a taboo, for fear of boding the loss of wealth. On New Year's Eve, the entire family shared the "sugar melons" served to the kitchen god, signaling the sweetness of a united family.

During the Lantern Festival a perforated cylindrical furnace about 1.5 meters high, made with bricks and clay and fueled by coal, would be set up in front of most houses. These so-called "bang chui huo" sent out blazing tongues of flame through the orifices on their cylindrical walls at night. Colorful lanterns were lit at night at the rooftop; sometimes up to a hundred of them adorned the decorated walls, a wonder to behold, a veritable galaxy on earth! The county town set up fireworks on high scaffoldings and trotted out "Mounts of Gold," "Mounts of Silver," lanterns with spinning images inside and riddles on the lamps for people to solve. Some lanterns featured self-playing puppet shows to amuse the fair-goers.

On the second day of February, there would be a parade held by the villagers to honor the mountain god. This ritual had its origin in the fear that wolves and other ferocious beasts could come out in the Festival to hurt people. There were many such predators in our village, that roamed the village foraging for food in the winter when food was hard to come by for them. The domesticated animals kept by the villagers would wail piteously, sending shudders through people's heart, as they sensed the approach of these savage beasts. When villagers traveled to neighboring villages to watch performances in the evening, they always went in groups as a defense against wolf attacks.

Months of (Chinese vernacular) opera performances and fairs followed in villages all around us, such as the fair and festivities at the Mingyuan Temple in the village of Dongsuohuang on April 18 and the opera performances at the Guandi Temple of our village on May 13, the river or floating lamp event in July, the sacrifice to the moon on August 15 and the fair at the Lüzu Temple during the Chongyang Festival (Double Ninth Festival) in September. These descriptions of my home village cover the period from1914 to 1920 when I was a young child.

On the day of the annual Qingming festival (Tomb-Sweeping Day), we put joss paper and sacrificial fried buns into a kind of picnic basket made from bamboo and painted red and, with our eldest brother in the lead, we passed through the village of Bei Zhuang Cun and headed to the "new ancestral burial ground" of the Lee clan, situated at Suohuang Kou, to honor our ancestors. The clan cemetery sat on a hill and looked out on a river. A highway, passing by the cemetery, was built in 1920 with funding from missionaries, who offered employment opportunities in lieu of alms, in that period of poor harvest in the nearby counties, to villagers willing to take part in the construction of the road. The road led from Yangquan county, passing through the county town of Pingding, to Xiyang county, terminating in Liaozhou county. Before the tombs stood a four-pillared sandstone paifang (memorial archway), with a slate banner at the top, inscribed with the characters "New Cemetery of the Lee Clan." The cemetery was planted with a large number of Manchurian catalpa and cypress trees, their girth equivalent to a circle formed by two adults linking hands. A brick pavilion accented with slate housing a stele stood in front of every tomb, with a stone altar attached. After our worship we wielded pickaxes and spades to fill potholes and level disturbed ground before heading home. Our old clan cemetery was in Shui Quan Gou, south of our village. We no longer visited it because it was overgrown with dense vegetation.

In preparation for the sacrificial ritual at our ancestral tombs, we made "mian yang" ("flour goats"), flour dough kneaded into the shape of goats and steamed. They were made in various sizes from 2 or 3 Chinese feet to 7 or 8 Chinese inches. They were distributed to children in our clan after the ritual.

The village enjoyed an agreeable climate, with balmy breezes and nice sunshine in spring when flowers bloomed everywhere. We had peonies, both the woody and the herbaceous variety, pomegranate, oleanders, fig trees and other flowering trees. They were placed in the courtyard or atop the enclosing walls and moved into heated rooms in winter lest they froze to death.

There was a wide variety of birds in northern China, unlike in Taiwan, where birdsong could be heard only in the mountains. Our village abounded particularly in pigeons, magpies, harriers and sparrows. We also had orioles, spotted doves, cuckoos and crows, although not as plenty.

The annoying continuous rain and high humidity from mid-June to early or mid-July is a characteristic of regions south of the Yangtze River but seem to have spared the North. There is no rainy season in our part of the country. The northern winter however brings a deep freeze and it was not uncommon for people to trudge in knee-deep snow. In winter women often developed chapped hands after washing dishes or clothes and people's ankles and ears often got swollen, itchy and painful from the freezing temperature.

The village folks were accustomed to living in "shi yao" ("stone kiln"), cave-style dwellings built with stone. These had an arched ceiling lined with slate, a flat roof on top enclosed by a "hua qiang" ("flower wall" or "decorated wall"). This flat roof was called a "yao ding" ("roof of the kiln"). I remember lying on the "roof of the kiln" watching the clouds floating or racing overhead, in constantly changing shapes, sometimes looking like human faces, sometimes resembling various animals. I was deeply impressed by the last golden light of the sun as evening neared and the silver-lined cloud banks of summer.

The trees in our village were predominantly pagoda trees, cypresses, pines, elms, plum trees, willows, mulberry trees, peach trees, pear trees, apricot trees, date trees and other flowering species. We had a Chinese toon tree in our courtyard; the tender purple tips of new leaves in spring were very tender. We salted them and mixed them with tofu to make a delicious side dish. After being salted and dried, they kept a long time. We also had a  cherry tree and four pear trees, none of which bore significant fruit due to neglect.

On the night of the Mid-Autumn Festival, also known as the Moon Festival we put "yue bing" (moon cakes), joss paper, and fruits on a table placed in the middle of the courtyard and performed moon worship. All the women folks would gather around a table to make dumplings for the whole family. 

On the ninth day of the ninth month on the lunisolar calendar, i.e. Chongyang Festival day, people would carry snacks in their picnic baskets and visit temples in the nearby mountains. One closer to home was the Longwang (Dragon King) Temple on the South Hill; one could also visit the Guanshan Mountain, which was at a greater distance. In my childhood however I only got as far as the Longwang Temple on South Hill and the Shi La Zha Mountain south of our village.

The busiest time in the farming villages was during spring planting and autumn harvest, involving threshing. In autumn short-term laborers were hired to harvest the cereal crops. The harvesting on our fields took only a couple of days. It was a busy time on the threshing ground in front of our house. In addition to the daily three meals provided them, the laborers also got to have two snacks in between. At night the threshed cereals were laid out on the flat roof of the dwelling to dry.

In our village we did not observe the winter solstice; as soon as we were in December on the lunisolar calendar, people would start preparing for the Spring Festival.

I had eight years of education in the village school. During the Spring Festival I would help my teacher to write some of the Spring Festival couplets that he was asked by villagers to write. During the Lantern Festival I helped villagers make colorful lanterns. I was also drafted to fill in household registers during the census conducted across the province. After finishing the village school, I studied at home with my father for two more years.

When I was little, my hair was combed into a small braid, tied with a red cord, at the end of which dangled a perforated coin, but the braid was cut when I was about 5 (in 1914) , leaving only a bang that fell across my forehead.

I lived with my mother in the "dong yao" (the "east cave"), a room in the household; at the time my grandfather was still alive, so we stayed in the "east cave" until he passed away, when we moved to the "zheng yao" or "cave proper," which he used to occupy). The door of the "east cave" had an opening in the threshold for the cats. One day the old black cat gave birth to a litter of four in a bamboo basket placed on an armoire, with respectively gray, tawny, golden brown and spotted fur. The spotted tabby cat became my favorite as it grew up and I played with it all the time. One summer it got sick, spitting a green vomit, and died a few days later. What puzzled me most was it was still frisking with me, pouncing playfully at me, an hour before, then died so unexpectedly. I thought at first it had recovered from the illness, but it died a short while later. I burst out crying and couldn't eat for a whole day.

In my childhood memory, we kept an old mutt with a tawny coat. He was, I think, a few years older than I. He had extremely short legs, belonging to a breed called in our village "ban deng gou" ("low stool dog"), because it bore a resemblance to a short-legged stool. It had a lovely dark golden coat and sometimes lay on its back on our flat rooftop with its paws pointed skyward. Our folks would jokingly say it was praying to the heavens. It was said the dog lived past 14 years of age.

In my childhood our village enjoyed relative peace. But one year the warlord Fan Zhongxiu launched an attack from Hebei province against Liaozhou, of Shanxi province. When his troops attempted to march into our province, the entire Pingding county went into high alert. There was an increased conscription of manpower from our village to help with defense. Those households keeping donkeys or asses had their draft animals sent, for days on a stretch, to the frontlines to help with transport of army supplies. Some unmarried men were conscripted to perform chores associated with defense. Fortunately the attack was repelled by the troops defending Shanxi province after a number of days.

In 1919 our village had a bad harvest; the situation became direr in 1920. That autumn I had to eat greenish "wowotou" made by steaming dough kneaded into cone shapes from flour made by grinding cereals, still green, that failed to produce grain. The villagers all developed a sickly look; there were quite a few who starved to death. At the time American missionaries raised funds overseas to buy oyster shell powder and cornmeal, which were mixed into a comestible, to provide emergency relief to famine victims. The missionaries also funded the construction of a road leading from Yangquan to Liaozhou (the road passed in front of the Lee clan's ancestral cemetery), offering construction jobs instead of alms to famished villagers. The road was eventually completed with the unstinting assistance of the missionaries.

There were the usual fair activities associated with the February 2 Festival on the second day of the second month on the lunar calendar in 1921. Mr. Zhao Xuegu of the neighboring village Chang Jia Gou ("Chang clan gulch") was invited by the mother of my school mate Lee Zhixu (whose mother was a few years older than Mr. Zhao) to watch a Chinese opera performance in our village. My school mate Lee Zhixu pointed me out to Mr. Zhao, without my knowledge, while I was in front of a small shop in the village, so Mr. Zhao got to give me a once-over. Not long after, Mr. Zhao Xuegu sent a matchmaker to our home, expressing the wish to give his eldest daughter (named Yindi, born in 1909, same age as me) to me in marriage. I was at the time only about 12 or 13 and put up a big fight against it. I told my folks I once saw a girl in a fair held in the neighboring village of Nan Ao, and took an instant liking to her. I said I was prepared to wait forever for her, and if I didn't see her again, I did not intend to marry another woman, ever. I said this was no light matter. From then on my sisters-in-law (eldest brother's wife nee Ge, second brother's wife nee Yan and third brother's wife nee Wei) would tease me every time they saw me, saying "no light matter." "No light matter" became a laughingstock.

In my childhood time crawled like a snail. Time still seemed to pass so slowly when I was already 31 or 32, in the period of Japanese aggression in China. In the 12 years after my arrival in Taiwan, I gained a lot of weight, and as I passed from middle age to a more advanced age, and my children grew to adulthood, time seemed to race ahead at the speed of light. Those 12 years seemed to be gone the blink of an eye.

Our household began to grapple with financial difficulties. Prior to this we still possessed four 50-tael "yuan bao" (a type of gold and silver ingot currency used in old China), placed under the granary for safekeeping. Soon our family grew in size, with about 15 or 16 mouths to feed. Our family owned about 60 acres of terraced land, which was tilled by a long-term laborer Old Xi hired by us. We also purchased a neutered gray donkey through our dyeing business in Shandong for use in farming, but the farm did not produce enough to feed the family. My eldest brother taught at the Shengmiao elementary school in the county town; my second elder brother was manager at a military uniform store called Wan Sheng Heng in Taiyuan (provincial capital of Shanxi); my third elder brother worked at the Yongyu private bank in Dingxian county of Hebei province as an bookkeeper and my fourth elder brother worked at a warehouse in Yuci, Shanxi province. Aside from about a hundred "xian yang" (silver dollar) in dividends we received annually from the dyeing business in Shandong, and the remittances my second elder brother was still able to send home, the other wage earners of our family could make only enough to put food on their own table. If I continued my education, the room and board and tuition costs would be inhibitive. I thought it untenable for me to remain an unproductive member of the family when more money was going out than coming in. I therefore asked an elder brother of my mother Mr. Ge Zicheng to find me a job. He had a job at the Yi Ling Yong warehouse in Yuci handling bookkeeping and and other clerical duties; through his intermediary the Hui Gu private bank in Yuci agreed to take me on. But as this was my first job and I was new to the city, where the local dialect was unfamiliar to me, it was hard for me to do a good job. A year later I went to Taiyuan to stay with my second elder brother and did what I could to help out (at the time the military uniform store where he worked had gone out of business due to unprofitability, and he found another job as chief accountant at the Members' Cooperative of the Society for National Salvation through Industrialization of Taiyuan).  

In the spring of 1934 the Northeast Industrial Company was recruiting people to be trained as accountants. I took their examination and was accepted into their training class. After completing the training course I was assigned to the Local Products Marketing Cooperative of Taiyuan to work in its accounting office. It was a pretty big company, occupying a four-floor building, with a staff of more than a hundred. There was a tea house on the roof of the third floor, where patrons could listen to singers and story-telling with drum accompaniment. Locally produced merchandise was offered for sale on the ground floor and the second and third floors; there was a separate wholesale department in the building. The store issued local products vouchers which were as good as the legal tender issued by the provincial government. I was kept very busy there, setting up an accounting system and designing accounting records and ledgers for the company and adopting the use of accounting documents, credit and debit slips etc.

In 1936 I was hired by the accounting department of the Suiyuan-Shanxi Military Industry and Minerology Prospecting Office.

In early 1937 I went back to the Northeast Industrial Company to work in its comprehensive review department, with the job of keeping a record of the company's assets. When the War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression started and Taiyuan suffered from repeated bombing by Japanese warplanes, the company moved temporarily to the coal mining company in Bai Jia Zhuang. On the night of the Moon Festival savage Japanese bombing in the city center caused heavy casualties in Taiyuan. In September the War took a bad turn in the vicinity of Yikou in Yi county, and Taiyuan appeared on the verge of falling into enemy hands. The company then decided to evacuate the whole staff on board coal trains to Yuncheng on the Datong-Puzhou railway.

Yuncheng produced salt from its naturally formed Salt Lake. A big temple with numerous halls and lofty architecture called the Fengshen Miao ("wind god temple"), one of Yuncheng's largest, overlooked the lake. Forty li from Yuncheng lies the county town of Xie county, which was the birth place of Guangong. An imposing temple devoted to Guangong is situated in that town, a major tourist draw. The fresh water used in Yunchen had to be transported from Xie county and was reserved for making tea only. Drinking water for household uses in Yunchen always tasted salty because of proximity to the salt lake. The millet porridge sold in the streets was so salty it was hard to swallow. Taking a bath was like taking a dip in sea water.

At the Yuncheng railway station I saw wounded soldiers transported south on the Datong-Puzhou railway. The entire open air station and the square were filled with these loudly moaning soldiers, who were said to have been evacuated from the battlefields in Niangziguan and Yikou. The untreated bullet wounds on their limbs were open and exposed because of a shortage of dressing and medicine. Their skin was the color of yam and badly swollen. Because these soldiers had less serious wounds they qualified for evacuation. Those with serious wounds were less fortunate, they either killed themselves, or were killed, or buried in ditches. It was a gruesome sight. All this was the work of the Japanese. We are speechless at this catastrophe visited upon the Chinese nation.

After being evacuated to Yuncheng, most of the staff of the company got laid off, as was I, so I traveled to Fenglingdu, where I crossed the Yellow River, and took the coal train from Tongguan to Xi'an (capital city of Shaanxi, not Shanxi). By the time the Cooperative where my second elder brother worked had already moved to Xi'an. I took up temporary residence at his place. One morning I was woken by the sound of exploding bombs: the Japanese warplanes had just started bombing the airport of Xi'an.