When we were at the Lingnan University campus on the other side of the river from old Canton the faculty kids were were American went to the various faculty houses to trick or treaty and we would get Chocolate chips. It was just after the war and any candy was hard to come by. I dont know what Bruce Carlson and Jim Belote did because we were all out in China at the same time. In fact Bruce might have even come on the same ship from San Fransisco to Hong Kong. Jim came on another ship. We were all kids, of course, at the time. It as a crazy time in China because the KMT was folding in front of the Communist forces and there was run-away inflation. For example my girl friends folks sold their Ford Station wagon for so much money in inflated bills that it filled the whole car! So they just left it and escaped through Tibet since were missionaries on the west side of China. They were Dutch Reform. Everybody was running. Some didnt make it out in time. 1949! Spread out and unwieldy China was consolidating into a communist Stalinist country. My father was Chinese and a colonel in the KMT. The Old Guard was withdrawing to Taiwan and our General who saw the writing on the wall went down to Hong Kong along with his people. Lingnan University in a different form still exists though but now part of Guangzhou. China was unchanged for years uncounted until the modern China of today. It reminds me of Isaac Asimovs Foundation series where selling gadgets and things to a powerful country ends in owning it. We had better watch out! Wall-Mart is just the beginning! I gave in and now have a dictionary for English to Mandarin!! But we all sort of spoke variations of Cantonese.
Posted on: Sat, 01 Nov 2014 15:33:46 +0000
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