A Granddaughter's Preamble
2018
The best we can hope for in this life is that we shall not have sons and grandsons of whom we need be ashamed. The whole pattern of Chinese life is organized according to this one idea. |
Dear Reader,
I invite you to learn about the lives of my grandparents Zing Wei and Han Liang Huang, two exemplars of the turbulent times that marked China's early 20th century. Originally from the small cities of Wuxi and Xiamen, they met in Shanghai and lived, amid war, in Shanghai and Hong Kong before eventually settling in California.
Early on, I learned my grandfather's story, but only in outline – the brilliant young man who earned a prestigious scholarship to the US and returned to China with his future made. He became a banker and served briefly as Minister of Finance. Throughout his life, he admired the country that had made his education possible. Less was said about my grandmother, the beautiful nurse who met her husband while tending his dying mother.
Over time, I learned that they lived in an era when China was in terminal decay and when, distressingly, Chinese were often second-class citizens in their own country. Neglect and injustice were rampant, but it was also an era when there was incredible room for creativity and innovation in nearly every domain of life, from business to belief systems, precisely because there was no ultimate political authority among the many competing foreign interests and growing number of domestic power brokers.
As I probed further, I discovered that my grandparents were two hardy weeds who grew up in the fertile soil between cracks in a system, and that both their accomplishments were considerable – my grandmother's arguably more deserving of note than my grandfather's because they have been so little known to our family.
But where my grandfather has earned credit for pulling himself up by his bootstraps, it seems my grandmother has often been dismissed for her humble beginnings – yet it turns out, if we wish to split hairs, that her background has rather more distinction than my grandfather’s. In the end, they both deserve credit for being self-made, and neither, as I have learned, can claim to have come from the bottom rung of society. Their hometowns of Wuxi and Xiamen also emerge as far less random and obscure starting points than I first realized.
In their younger selves, I glimpse in my grandfather an innocent enthusiasm and in my grandmother a self-sufficiency that stand in sharp contrast to the imperious and helpless personas that they often presented to their children and grandchildren later in life.
Though they journeyed far from where they began, ultimately a shadow of melancholy overhangs their stories. It is not simply that their times were filled with hardship, but rather that my grandparents' hard-won successes often seem to have been lonely ones, ones that didn't necessarily bring them closer to each other or to other family members.
May your interest in their lives help close that gap.
In leaving trails for me to pursue, my grandparents gave me a way to peer into an anarchic, fecund and riveting period of history. I hope this website may inspire other family members to also find out more. For this reason, my narrative is sign-posted with dates, Chinese characters and pinyin in a way that I hope may be helpful, or glossed over if not.
I invite you to learn about the lives of my grandparents Zing Wei and Han Liang Huang, two exemplars of the turbulent times that marked China's early 20th century. Originally from the small cities of Wuxi and Xiamen, they met in Shanghai and lived, amid war, in Shanghai and Hong Kong before eventually settling in California.
Early on, I learned my grandfather's story, but only in outline – the brilliant young man who earned a prestigious scholarship to the US and returned to China with his future made. He became a banker and served briefly as Minister of Finance. Throughout his life, he admired the country that had made his education possible. Less was said about my grandmother, the beautiful nurse who met her husband while tending his dying mother.
Over time, I learned that they lived in an era when China was in terminal decay and when, distressingly, Chinese were often second-class citizens in their own country. Neglect and injustice were rampant, but it was also an era when there was incredible room for creativity and innovation in nearly every domain of life, from business to belief systems, precisely because there was no ultimate political authority among the many competing foreign interests and growing number of domestic power brokers.
As I probed further, I discovered that my grandparents were two hardy weeds who grew up in the fertile soil between cracks in a system, and that both their accomplishments were considerable – my grandmother's arguably more deserving of note than my grandfather's because they have been so little known to our family.
But where my grandfather has earned credit for pulling himself up by his bootstraps, it seems my grandmother has often been dismissed for her humble beginnings – yet it turns out, if we wish to split hairs, that her background has rather more distinction than my grandfather’s. In the end, they both deserve credit for being self-made, and neither, as I have learned, can claim to have come from the bottom rung of society. Their hometowns of Wuxi and Xiamen also emerge as far less random and obscure starting points than I first realized.
In their younger selves, I glimpse in my grandfather an innocent enthusiasm and in my grandmother a self-sufficiency that stand in sharp contrast to the imperious and helpless personas that they often presented to their children and grandchildren later in life.
Though they journeyed far from where they began, ultimately a shadow of melancholy overhangs their stories. It is not simply that their times were filled with hardship, but rather that my grandparents' hard-won successes often seem to have been lonely ones, ones that didn't necessarily bring them closer to each other or to other family members.
May your interest in their lives help close that gap.
In leaving trails for me to pursue, my grandparents gave me a way to peer into an anarchic, fecund and riveting period of history. I hope this website may inspire other family members to also find out more. For this reason, my narrative is sign-posted with dates, Chinese characters and pinyin in a way that I hope may be helpful, or glossed over if not.
Dede
May 2018
May 2018