I was born, a Libra, in the year of the monkey in Beijing to an old Chinese [infopopup:Literati] family.
My father was Yeh Gongchao, 葉公超, (George Yeh), my mother, Yuan Yungxi, 袁永熹, (Edna Yuan).
They had high hopes for my future; my own aspirations, however, were somewhat less exalted.
At four I wanted to be a rickshaw puller when I grew up.
Training for my fabulous career 1936
“Alas,” my father lamented. “My daughter is a wild jungle monkey.” Yet ever indulgent, he had this jade seal carved for me. The top of it is a little dog.
The bottom bears the stamp of a monkey on the left and “Yeh Tung” on the right.
The family name “Yeh” means leaf. The character occupies the top right corner of the seal impression and represents a leafy tree. Below it is the character “Tung”’ which means red or cinnabar. The left half of the ideogram is a Taoist alchemist’s crucible where [infopopup:cinnabar] is being cooked. The right side represents a calligraphy brush. In ancient days women historians, tutors, poets who served in the Imperial court wrote with brushes dipped in cinnabar red ink.
My mother was the sterner of my two parents. She took on the challenge of educating me, rarely missing a chance to correct my endless faults. I resisted by making myself tamper proof, or so I thought.
When I was six, she drew in my autograph book a carefully executed diagram. The character for LEARN sat at the hub of a wheel. Radiating from LEARN were the characters for Discipline, Honesty, Respect, Patience, Restraint, Selflessness, etc. each in its own sharp didactic wedge.
How tiresome. My schoolmates’ parents had written for them, in their little autograph books, words of praise, benediction, affection or, at the very least, fervent wishes for their glorious futures.
As for my own future, I never got to pull a real rickshaw. I did, however, have a great variety of adventures, both glorious and otherwise. My professional career is so skimpy that I once applied for a job in television news in Hollywood with a resume tucked in a fortune cookie. Needless to say, I didn’t get the job.
But, both before and after that, I actually did work in TV in Hong Kong and San Francisco as a writer/director/producer of documentaries and comedy sketches. I’ve also worked as a waitress, hotel maid, postal clerk, puller on a tuna boat, etc.
These stories of my life were written from a purely personal point of view; my memory is not only biased, but weather beaten, shot full of holes, more like a colander than a carbon copy of the truth. My life is a work in progress; please Subscribe to be notified of fresh additions. Welcome to Stories from a Checkered Past.