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first. Ye Ye and Grandmother welcomed the idea of Father’s remarriage as it was not right for a young man to be without a wife. Aunt Baba, moreover, was partially released from her housekeeping obligations and might, in theory, have picked up tne threads of her own life. Quite how my sister and brothers reacted to the marriage I cannot really say as I was only an infant when it took place. But a Chinese saying goes, if you are to have but one parent, choose your beggarwoman mother rather than your emperor father.
    Father bought the house next door on Shandong Road as a present for his bride and the newlyweds moved in by themselves. The rest of the family and the servants remained in the old house, where Father still kept his offices. The family ate
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    dinner together every evening. Father and Ye Ye continued to work downstairs side by side and business thrived.
    Since my elder sister and brothers still spoke frequently of our own dead mother, whom they called Mama, Grandmother told us children to call Jeanne Niang, another term for mother. We, in turn, were given new European names by Niang. Overnight, my sister Jun-pei became Lydia, my three brothers Zi-jie, Zi-lin and Zi-jun were named Gregory, Edgar and James, and I, Junling, was called Adeline.
    Japanese troops, which already occupied Tianjin and Beijing, were now moving steadily southwards. They met surprisingly strong resistance in Nanking and, in retaliation, went on a terrifying spree of rape, looting and murder. Over
    300,000 civilians and prisoners of war were tortured and killed during the Rape of Nanking in 1937 and early 1938 after the city was captured by the Japanese. Shanghai fell and Chiang Kai-shek fled westwards across China, up the Yangtse River, deep into the mountainous province of Sichuan. There he set up his wartime government in the town of Chongqing. It’s not hard to imagine the tension and turmoil that these momentous political upheavals must have imposed on Chinese family life.
    In 1939, suddenly and without warning, Tianjin was drowned in a great flood. The disaster was of staggering proportions. Ye Ye called it ’China’s sorrow’ and went to the Buddhist temple to burn incense and offer prayers for relief, Pro-Japanese newspapers printed in Tianjin blamed the catastrophe on Chiang Kai-shek while the Nationalist party (Kuomintang) press in Chongqing accused the Japanese. Dykes on the Yellow River had been deliberately dynamited and river water released to slow the advance of troops. The flood encompassed three provinces. All crops in its path were destroyed. Two million people became homeless. Hundreds of thousands died from starvation and disease. Schools were closed. Businesses came to a standstill. However, Father’s lumber company kicked into high gear. The price of rowing
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    boats soared from one hundred to eight hundred yuan. Oars were extra.
    The flood caused Father to construct a high wooden platform connecting his two houses. Crossings were slippery and hazardous, particularly for Grandmother tottering on her small bound feet. Niang had just given birth to our halfbrother, Franklin, and was still recuperating. Father virtually had to carry her across to the ’old house’ every evening so that the family could eat dinner together.
    Niang had little sympathy for all the difficulties the servants faced. Cook was expected to reach the market every morning, and return home laden with groceries, on a flimsy raft nailed together with planks. When Ye Ye pointed out the dangers inherent in these shopping expeditions, Niang simply replied that Cook was a good swimmer and she did not see fit to arrange for a rowing boat to be put at his disposal. When the waters finally subsided after forty days, Grandmother ordered that a solid and covered room be constructed linking the two houses. Lydia nicknamed it ’the bridge’ and we used to play hide-and-seek there.
    The youngest child of our generation, our half-sister Susan, was born in November