風雨飄搖一世紀
濮氏家族君田公支脈近百年簡史
THE RAINY & WINDY CENTURY
A Brief Modern History of the Branch of Sir Chun-Tien of Pu Family
The following speech was delivered by Stanley Yu-Kuang, Sir Chun-Tien’s second son, on 11/23/05 during our San Diego Family Reunion Dinner Party. The speech describes chronologically the growth and development of generations A and B and how all family members of Sir Chun-Tien’s branch have eventually immigrated to the USA to form a strong and integrated group.
Our family is one of the oldest families in China. Two to three thousand years ago, a tribe gathered at a place near a river named PU (濮水, PU-SHUI) in Shantung province. This tribe then adopted the river’s name as their surname – PU (濮). Several hundred years later, this tribe moved to Wei-Hui, Honan province which was the formal origin of our family.
In the mid-12th century, during the Sung Dynasty, because of war our ancestors evacuated with the Sung government to the south and settled down in Lishui, Chiangsu province. Since then our ancestors registered Lishui as our family origin which we are still using today.
Like the majority of Chinese family, our ancestors made their living by farming, only a few who were well educated were appointed by the emperors to be local government officials to serve in different districts. Almost all of them earned a good reputation.
Our family book started its record in 1856. From that time on, a name pattern consisting of 16 Chinese characters was set up for all generations to follow. Each generation is assigned a character in order as part of each family member’s name. With this name pattern, each one would easily know which generation he (or she) belongs to and what relationship he is with other family members.
My father was the 4th generation from the time our family book was recorded. And the generation of our brothers and sisters is the 5th. But, today, I don’t want to talk too much about old history, rather concentrating on the part as to how our family has grown and developed to become such a big group as today.
My speech starts from my parents. To help you have a better understanding, I shall name my father’s generation as generation A, my generation is B and next generation is C which constitutes the main part of this reunion. The youngest ones are generation D.
The generation A comprises 5 brothers and 4 sisters. Our father was the youngest son of the family. He graduated from Ho-Hai Engineering Institute in 1923 and became a civil engineer working in different places in China. In 1934, he was invited to Nanchang, Chianghsi province as senior engineer. My mother was a graduate from Chiangsu First Lady Normal School and worked as a teacher at an elementary school in Nanking. Both of our parents had good and steady jobs plus some extra income from farm products, so we had enjoyed a decent living without fear and worry. Although our family origin was Lishui, we seldom went back to visit, only lived in Nanking all years of our childhood until the Sino-Japanese war broke out in summer 1937.
On August 13, 1937 Japanese army, navy and marine troops jointly invaded Shanghai. Nanking is not far from Shanghai. So my father rushed back to Nanking and brought all of us to Nanchang in September where he was working.
Three months later, the war situation turned worse and worse. Chinese army had suffered a severe defeat and was in full retreat to the inland. At this critical time, my parents made a very brave and intelligent decision to move our family to Guiyang, Guichou province, which was more than two thousand miles to the west and was a remote, bleak, desolate and uncultivated wilderness. This decision was a combination of courage, wisdom and strong-will. This was the most important decision my parents had ever made and it was the first turning point of our family in their life.
In the meantime, my father was on an urgent call for a special military mission, he was therefore unable to go to Guiyang with us. Only my mother and her younger brother, our uncle, led all of us to set off our long adventurous journey to the wild west in December 1937. My mother was in her early 40s at that time, and had never experienced such long journey before. Now, it was imperative for her to lead all her 7 kids, age ranging from 13 to only 4 years old little girl (Ellen) to take this tough and dangerous long trip to this desolate and strange place. Those areas and mountains we passed through were all mysterious and were always infested with bandits, robbers and criminals. The highway bus we were taking had no schedule, and no time table. We completely had no idea when it would go or stop. Every morning, my uncle had to go to the bus station to check whether it would go or not. Finally, we safely arrived in Guiyang in February l938 after having spent two solid months on the road.
Next year in 1939, my father got new job in Fulin, Szechwan. We had to move again to meet him there. This time, my mother alone took this responsibility, bringing us, all still kids, riding on the highway bus toward another life.
Education was always the first goal in my parents mind and was of the prime importance to them. Regardless what situation we were in and what difficulty we encountered, searching for right school was always the first thing to do when we moved to a new city. In their mind, education is the best investment they could give us. They always said to us that we were not rich family, we could not leave you a lot of money, but we would give you all a good education so you could make good living on your own.
When we settled down in Fulin for a while, our family began to split up. It was only for the purpose of education. My elder brother, Raymond, was the first one to leave home for Chungking, and I was the second to follow. A few years later, Sanli also left home for schooling.
Due to the Japanese surrender, the war ended in August 1945. Next year in 1946, our parents returned to Nanking with Larry and two sisters. Meantime, Raymond was in Kunmin, I was in Chendu, Sanli in Chungking and Paul in Wuhan. Our brothers were scattered in different areas. A year later in 1947, I graduated from Chinese Air Force Engineering Institute and was assigned to Dihua (now renamed Urumqi), Hsinchiang province. My parents were worried about me for living alone so far away. But fortunately, the following year in February 1948 I suddenly and surprisingly received a transfer order to move from Dihua to Shanghai. This cross-country transfer from the far west mountain to the far east coast not only changed my life completely, but also affected our whole family tremendously for the years to come.
In late December 1948, the Chinese civil war became very unfavorable to the government side. The unit I was working with was ordered to withdraw to Taiwan. Taking advantage of this unique opportunity, I rushed to bring my mother, Larry and two sisters to board a military chartered ocean-going vessel sailing directly for Taiwan. On New Year’s Day of 1949, we arrived at Keelung, the northern harbor of Taiwan. Shortly after, my father and Sanli also came to join us in Taiwan. This was the second turning point of our family history leading our family life into a complete new chapter.
1955, Sanli was sent to the States by Taiwan government on a 6-month special training program. He was the first person of our family to step foot on this new territory and his American trip opened our family door leading to the U.S. Two years later in 1957, Larry obtained admission from the graduate school of the University of Michigan. Larry’s coming to the States made our door opening wide. Then in 1960, Sanli came back again to America to study for his Doctor’s degree at Rensselear Polytech Institute in Troy, NY. With these two brothers’ coming to the States, it prompted my father to have a new idea, planning for all of our family members to move to the USA for a better life and, most important, for a better education for future generations. In mid-1960s, both Sanli and Larry were naturalized as citizens of the USA. Soon after, they started to apply for immigration status for our parents, two sisters and me. So, I would say that both Sanli and Larry’s coming to the States was the third turning point of our family, enabling our whole family to enter an entire new era.
In the early 1970s, my two sisters, Lily and Ellen, and their families came to NYC one after the other. My own small family was the last team coming to Los Angeles in the spring of 1974. At that moment, all of our family members in Taiwan had successfully moved to the States as my father had planned and all settled down well.
During the past long years, my mother always kept in touch with my other two brothers, Raymond and Paul, who were still in mainland China. It was not until the end of 1979, when the US government established normal relationships with Red China and the Chinese government lifted the “Bamboo Curtain” that “foreigners” were permitted to visit their immediate family members in China. Despite her age of 82 years old and thousands of miles long distance flights, my mother again showed her iron will and went to Kunmin to see her two sons from whom she had been separated for more then 35 years. With my sister Lily’s assistance and escort, my mother flew to China in the spring of 1980. When she returned to New York in two months, she immediately applied for immigration status for her two sons and their families. Through her great painstaking effort, those two families arrived in NYC on Dec.1, 1982. That was the very moment all of our family members - our parents, seven children and their families, got together again and had a joyful reunion on this beautiful land after almost 40 years of long separation.
Summing up, I should say that my father was a very responsible person for our whole family. His main concern was not on our daily life, but on our education and our future. On the other hand, my mother was a typical house wife who had fully devoted herself to each one of us, taking good care of our food, health and daily living. Just because of their deliberate consideration and good planning, we were able to weather through so many difficulties and disasters, so each of us could enjoy our quiet, peaceful and fear-free life here. Their great effort not only benefits our generation B but also covers the subsequent generations C, D and so on.
The time granted me to deliver this brief family history is short, but in memory of our parents, all of our brothers and sisters are deeply grateful for their dedication, sacrifice and everything they have done for us. Our respect and love to them is endless, boundless and will last forever.
Last, but not the least, I’d like to take about half a minute to end this speech with my personal thinking. Both of our parents’ generation A and our generation B belong to the last century which has gone. Now, it is 21st century, a new century which belongs to you, the younger generations. I sincerely hope that each of you will enrich our family book with many new beautiful pages, making it brighter and more glorious.