Thank you for putting out this three-part series. One can only imagine the time it took to come up with the multitudinous incidents in your life, to digest them yourself, and organize them into a coherent whole. The discussion of therapy was particularly poignant. In many ways this whole series has been, shall I say, therapeutic for you, at least as therapeutic for you as it is informational for the rest of us.
I have been listening to you for years, and never written, your gift for introspective thought, your agility in adjusting to the left turns that an interview always presents, your assembly of precise adjectives, and, yes, your political leanings have become second nature. The piece of the puzzle that you have brilliantly filled-in is the answer to the 为什么 (why) question. (I sense that there is even more that could contribute to the picture, but this is a wonderful start.)
Hi, Kaiser. It must have been 20 years since we met in Beijing for the first time. You were writing a profile for a "northern china cotton farmer" when we chatted in the office of my first employer, a commodities trading company.
I learned so much more about you and your mom & dad from this 3 episodes. Let's keep in touch.
Kaiser, you're brave to lay out your family's history/dramas with such color...Many of us wouldn't dare. ;) My parents' families were both KMT. My parents kept a foot in the conversation once in America. OCA used to be the Overseas Chinese Association, not the Organization for Chinese Americans. They used to attend big regional meetings for discussions about what was going on over there, but gave up a lot of that to focus on their own activities, doing what they could do from their humble posts. But the message we got growing up was what I would characterize as firmly agnostic on the CCP vs KMT rows. Their core view was that China lacked Science. And without Science, there was no adequate tech development. Hard stop. The politics were a function of the people's depraved material state manifesting as never-ending, unproductive, factional infighting. Corruption was a byproduct of an ecosystem too poor in resources. Only science would create the opportunities that would then meet the needs, and only then could people properly resolve their existential dilemmas, even their family problems. I'm not saying they're entirely correct (and plenty of social consequences to this POV), but I think it's valuable to recognize that this was a shared view amongst KMT and CCP sympathizers. Despite being the son of a KMT general, my father never faced any problems on the Mainland. In fact, he was welcomed and embraced warmly for the technical expertise he could contribute, in addition to his nationalist loyalty for having shown up to do so. It wasn't just him, there were other colleagues with similar mixed backgrounds, Taiwan, HK, Australia, US, Europe, Canada.
Thank you for putting out this three-part series. One can only imagine the time it took to come up with the multitudinous incidents in your life, to digest them yourself, and organize them into a coherent whole. The discussion of therapy was particularly poignant. In many ways this whole series has been, shall I say, therapeutic for you, at least as therapeutic for you as it is informational for the rest of us.
I have been listening to you for years, and never written, your gift for introspective thought, your agility in adjusting to the left turns that an interview always presents, your assembly of precise adjectives, and, yes, your political leanings have become second nature. The piece of the puzzle that you have brilliantly filled-in is the answer to the 为什么 (why) question. (I sense that there is even more that could contribute to the picture, but this is a wonderful start.)
With gratitude and respect, -- Dennis
Hi, Kaiser. It must have been 20 years since we met in Beijing for the first time. You were writing a profile for a "northern china cotton farmer" when we chatted in the office of my first employer, a commodities trading company.
I learned so much more about you and your mom & dad from this 3 episodes. Let's keep in touch.
Forrest Hu (from Singapore)
Kaiser, you're brave to lay out your family's history/dramas with such color...Many of us wouldn't dare. ;) My parents' families were both KMT. My parents kept a foot in the conversation once in America. OCA used to be the Overseas Chinese Association, not the Organization for Chinese Americans. They used to attend big regional meetings for discussions about what was going on over there, but gave up a lot of that to focus on their own activities, doing what they could do from their humble posts. But the message we got growing up was what I would characterize as firmly agnostic on the CCP vs KMT rows. Their core view was that China lacked Science. And without Science, there was no adequate tech development. Hard stop. The politics were a function of the people's depraved material state manifesting as never-ending, unproductive, factional infighting. Corruption was a byproduct of an ecosystem too poor in resources. Only science would create the opportunities that would then meet the needs, and only then could people properly resolve their existential dilemmas, even their family problems. I'm not saying they're entirely correct (and plenty of social consequences to this POV), but I think it's valuable to recognize that this was a shared view amongst KMT and CCP sympathizers. Despite being the son of a KMT general, my father never faced any problems on the Mainland. In fact, he was welcomed and embraced warmly for the technical expertise he could contribute, in addition to his nationalist loyalty for having shown up to do so. It wasn't just him, there were other colleagues with similar mixed backgrounds, Taiwan, HK, Australia, US, Europe, Canada.