Manuscript of a Chinese Refugee's Memoir of Life in Communist China
10010Tax included.
An outstanding first-hand account of the life of Nathan S. Y. Yuan, a Chinese refugee in the years immediately following the rise of Mao Zedong, and culminating in the Great Leap Forward, an economic and social plan initiated by the Communist Party of China in 1958 to increase the economic prosperity of the country, which resulted in tens of millions of Chinese citizens starving to death.
Yuan was a civil servant who worked as a customs librarian in Shanghai when the Communist Party took over. Yuan eventually escaped to Taiwan where he worked as Librarian of the Customs Reference Library and later as a Senior Expert in the Ministry of Finance of Taiwan. His manuscript is dated 1958. However, he notes that it was serialized in 1952, possibly as newspaper articles.
The manuscript is titled "The Tale of a Chinese Refugee." It is unclear whether this manuscript was ever published in book form. Yuan did later publish a book entitled "Crossing the Rubicon: The Story of a Chinese Refugee Family" in 1980, which may be based in whole or in part on this manuscript.
In the preface of this manuscript, Yuan opens with: "This is a story of my life after the arrival of the Communists in Shanghai and of my struggle to rejoin the Government of China on Taiwan. It was originally written and published in 1952 as espisodes [sic] for readers in Taiwan. These separate articles are now rewritten into a complete story for presentation to our American friends as a human document and an indictment against Communism, and also an admonition to the peoples in uncommitted countries and in the so-called 'neutral' countries."
He goes on to say: "Written almost five years ago, my observations on the Chinese Communists as I saw them with my own eyes have been proven by independent reports of mainland conditions that the free world has since then received. My story is not stale because the wickedness of Communism has a perpetual pattern and, like cancer, it grows but never changes its form or essence."
The table of contents offers a brief summary of what can be found inside:
Making the Decision
First Experiences As A Refugee In Hong Kong
Life in Red Shanghai
The Birth of A Crook
Daughter Applied for a Job
Desperate Advanture [sic]
Inside a Hong Kong Jail
Life in Hong Kong
To Taiwan At Last
In describing the takeover of the customs office where he worked, Yuan writes: "Wang was a native of Shantung, from whose appearance one could immediately see that he was a calculating and cunning man and possibly a TB victim. He was dressed in a threadbare suit without any marks or decorations with bare feet in cotton shoes. His worldly belongings were worth less than US$1.00, but this was the man who did more than anyone else to wreck a Service that had claimed world renown for nearly a century . . . When freedom was lost, living ended and mere existence began. I also learned that freedom was not completely lost until one was denied knowledge of its existence or disabled to protest against its loss or fight for its recovery."
The manuscript measures 8.5 inches by 11 inches. It consists of 163 single-sided, typed onion-skin pages. The pages are bound with a string and the cover page is detached. Other than some chipping and wear marks on the edges, the pages are in good condition.
This is an impressive, well-written document by an educated and thoughtful man. It provides a valuable, detailed, first-hand account of the harrowing experiences Yuan endured in his quest for freedom from the People's Republic of China. His manuscript bears witness to momentous events that happened in the recent past, offering valuable historical information about a turbulent and controversial time in Chinese history.
Yuan was a civil servant who worked as a customs librarian in Shanghai when the Communist Party took over. Yuan eventually escaped to Taiwan where he worked as Librarian of the Customs Reference Library and later as a Senior Expert in the Ministry of Finance of Taiwan. His manuscript is dated 1958. However, he notes that it was serialized in 1952, possibly as newspaper articles.
The manuscript is titled "The Tale of a Chinese Refugee." It is unclear whether this manuscript was ever published in book form. Yuan did later publish a book entitled "Crossing the Rubicon: The Story of a Chinese Refugee Family" in 1980, which may be based in whole or in part on this manuscript.
In the preface of this manuscript, Yuan opens with: "This is a story of my life after the arrival of the Communists in Shanghai and of my struggle to rejoin the Government of China on Taiwan. It was originally written and published in 1952 as espisodes [sic] for readers in Taiwan. These separate articles are now rewritten into a complete story for presentation to our American friends as a human document and an indictment against Communism, and also an admonition to the peoples in uncommitted countries and in the so-called 'neutral' countries."
He goes on to say: "Written almost five years ago, my observations on the Chinese Communists as I saw them with my own eyes have been proven by independent reports of mainland conditions that the free world has since then received. My story is not stale because the wickedness of Communism has a perpetual pattern and, like cancer, it grows but never changes its form or essence."
The table of contents offers a brief summary of what can be found inside:
Making the Decision
First Experiences As A Refugee In Hong Kong
Life in Red Shanghai
The Birth of A Crook
Daughter Applied for a Job
Desperate Advanture [sic]
Inside a Hong Kong Jail
Life in Hong Kong
To Taiwan At Last
In describing the takeover of the customs office where he worked, Yuan writes: "Wang was a native of Shantung, from whose appearance one could immediately see that he was a calculating and cunning man and possibly a TB victim. He was dressed in a threadbare suit without any marks or decorations with bare feet in cotton shoes. His worldly belongings were worth less than US$1.00, but this was the man who did more than anyone else to wreck a Service that had claimed world renown for nearly a century . . . When freedom was lost, living ended and mere existence began. I also learned that freedom was not completely lost until one was denied knowledge of its existence or disabled to protest against its loss or fight for its recovery."
The manuscript measures 8.5 inches by 11 inches. It consists of 163 single-sided, typed onion-skin pages. The pages are bound with a string and the cover page is detached. Other than some chipping and wear marks on the edges, the pages are in good condition.
This is an impressive, well-written document by an educated and thoughtful man. It provides a valuable, detailed, first-hand account of the harrowing experiences Yuan endured in his quest for freedom from the People's Republic of China. His manuscript bears witness to momentous events that happened in the recent past, offering valuable historical information about a turbulent and controversial time in Chinese history.
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