My research for my book about China leads me to interviewing family members and relatives, and discovering many untold family stories, such as 11 relatives starved to death in the Great Leap Forward; why I grew up without a father (he was locked away for 11 years in the Cultural Revolution). The most startling secrete, to my amusement, is that my mothers side is actually Mongol. Our most notable ancestor was a mongol general from the Kingdom of Golden Horde, in the Ural Mountains. But as the Yuan Dynasty crumbled, my ancesters had to change their Mongol name to Yu, a Han surname to survive. They did well -- a great great great....grandfather founded the Navy and helped establish the following Ming Dynasty. That really explains why I have high cheekbones and wavy hair (laughing stock all my life in China). Since I was a little kid Ive been having this recurring daydream of riding on a horse on the vast grassland, with an eagle on one of my arms. I felt at home when I first visited Tibet at age 15. I was into sword fighting (I did fencing), kungfu and so on. My maternal uncles and aunts all behave different from ordinary Han people. One of my aunts used to be a shooting coach. My maternal grandfather was a good hunter, a kungfu master and the captain to the Peking Soccer Team. Anyway, I always thought my daydream of being a horse riding warrior was at odds with my daily surroundings of a very laidback domesticated Sichuanese city called Chengdu, famous for tea drinking and mahjong playing. Now I have a tangible explanation... As much as I feel disconnected with modern day Mongolia and Southern Mongolia (Inner Mongolia), I try to watch closely whats happening there. And its just dreadful stories, one after another. Its unfortunate we Mongols dont have a Dalai Lama. So heres the latest bad news: reuters/article/2013/11/11/us-china-trial-idUSBRE9AA0DM20131111
Posted on: Tue, 12 Nov 2013 08:58:18 +0000
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