Zhang Yi: Why?

Shenghua: He argued that “if I have my wife, my wife must bear kids. What is the use for you to find me a wife who cannot bear kids? I cannot accept this”

Pan Hannian argued with him: “I am your boss. How can you refuse my arrangement for your marriage?”

He said that “I do not want this wife.”

“What and how you want to do?”

“I will find my own wife.”

“You must get it clear. Whoever is arranged for you is our own CCP comrade. Now that you are to find your own wife, you must know our organizational discipline.”

My father said: “Well, it is not too hard. True husband and wife, and false comradeship.” So his true identity would not be exposed. It was easy for him to say so but it was truly difficult for him to do so. How to cope with the situation? He could only marry a woman who had given birth to a child. Either a widow or a divorcee. And she must have her child with her. This would prove that she could bear kids. This was condition 1. Condition 2 then, she should in no case have had any education at all. If his wife to be had had any education, his identity would have been exposed readily. So he started his search for his wife. So he found my mother. My mother’s ex-husband died of T.B. My mother was an odd worker at a textile mill. During that time, the T.B. was an equivalent to our present day’s cancer. No cure. So there were my mother and my big brother whose father was my mother’s ex-husband. My big brother was 5 years old then. They met and agreed to get married. Readily and quickly. So they established their family. Our home then was at 572 Changde Road. In winter of 1939, they moved to today’s 338 Weihai Road crossing Qinghai Road. The Tu Zuochao family was on the second floor and Li Bai and his wife lived on the third floor that was a loft. The first floor was for the shop. My father’s name then was Jiang Lingen. Li Bai and his wife called my father Master Jiang. They called my mother Goodwife Jiang. Even when it was in the 1950’s and early 1960’s, when the widow of Martyr Li Bai, her name was Auntie Qiu Huiying, came to my home, she would still call my mother (in Shanghai dialect) Goodwife Jiang, Goodwife Jiang. So, the 2 families lived together.