第一章
从我的背景来看，没有什么理由相信我会在21世纪之交的中国发现自己处于经济和政治权力的中心。我不是出生在红色贵族阶层--1949年在中国夺取政权的共产党精英集团领导人的后代。远非如此。我的个性似乎也不适合这个角色。
我于1968年11月出生在上海的一个家庭，这个家庭分为中国共产党执政后受迫害的人和未受迫害的人。根据共产主义教义，我父亲一方属于"黑五类分子 "之一：地主、富农、反革命、坏分子、右派。在1949年的共产主义革命之前，我的祖先是地主。如果考虑到有海外亲属的额外费用，他们就更该死了。在世界其他地方，这些都是杰出的标志，但在20世纪50年代和60年代的中国，经济上的成功和国际关系意味着你是，正如共产党人所说，"天生的老鼠"。家庭的低下地位使我父亲无法进入更好的学校，并使他对这个世界怀有怨恨，他的一生都会带着这种怨恨。
我父亲的族人是来自苏州的地主阶级，苏州是长江三角洲的一个小城市，因其豪华的花园和风景如画的运河而被称为中国的威 尼斯。家族传说，1949年共产党军队在与蒋介石的国民党军队进行内战时，沈氏家族将其贵重物品倾倒在家族大院的一口井里。这块土地后来被共产党政府征用，今天是一家国有医院的所在地。在几年前的一次团聚中，一位年长的亲戚给了我一个非常具体的地点，并试图说服我去挖出家族的宝藏。鉴于中国政府认为地底下的一切都属于国家财产，我不同意。
我父亲那边的祖父在革命前是上海的一位著名律师。随着共产党对国家的控制越来越严，他和许多富裕的人一样，有机会逃离。但我的祖父对成为一个低级别的难民的前景望而却步。对他来说，香港是来自上海的移民最喜欢的目的地，永远无法与他的家乡，当时被称为东方巴黎的城市相比。他相信共产党的宣传，即党将与资本主义阶级成员合作建立"新中国"，他决定留下来。
我父亲从未原谅过他父亲的那个决定，认为他对党的天真信仰让我父亲失去了青春。1952年，党政当局关闭了我祖父的律师事务所，把全家人，包括我父亲的两个兄弟和一个姐妹，从上海的三层排屋中赶了出来，这栋房子是祖父在革命前用金条买的。我爷爷把所有人都带回了苏州。每个人都是如此，除了我父亲，他在10岁时被指示留在上海完成小学学业。
接下来的几年很艰难。我的父亲在一系列的亲戚之间辗转腾挪，四处找饭吃，找地方睡觉。他经常饿着肚子睡觉。一位叔叔对我父亲特别好，尽管革命对他并不友好。在共产党接管之前，他是一个成功的商人。共产党人接管了他的公司，给他分配了一份工作，在他拥有的一家工厂当人力车司机。共产党是这种待遇的大师，旨在摧毁一个人最宝贵的财产--他的尊严和自尊。
作为一个共产主义国家的资本主义律师家庭的后代，我父亲学会了低头。独自生活使他变得坚韧不拔，并学会了如何生存。然而，他的烦恼只会加强他对父亲把家庭留在中国的愤怒。
在上海饥饿和孤独地长大，给我父亲灌输了一种恐惧，害怕与周围的人形成深刻的联系。他讨厌欠别人什么，只想靠自己。同样的观念也灌输给了我，即使到了今天，我仍然对欠债的感觉很不舒服。只有在后来，在我遇到了成为我妻子的女人之后，我才知道这可以是多么的孤立。段伟红说，在生活的起伏中，如果你从不对任何人负责，就不会有人对你负责，你就永远不会建立更深的关系。虽然我多年来一直害怕我的父亲，但我现在看到他是一个孤独的人物，他独自与世界战斗。
我父亲不被认可的阶级背景使他无法进入中国较好的大学之一。相反，他被分配到上海的一所教师培训学校，主修中文。在他那一代人中，我父亲身高超过六英尺，是学校排球队的主力队员。他的勤奋和他的运动能力一定吸引了我母亲的目光。1962年，两人在师范学院相遇。我的母亲也很有魅力，作为一个中国女人来说，她很高，5.8英尺（1.76米），也是一个运动员；她跑田径。他们穿着单调的毛泽东服，在当时的邮票大小的黑白快照中没有一丝一毫的表情，他们仍然是一对英俊的夫妇。
我母亲的家庭有海外关系，但她和她在中国的亲戚都躲避了迫害。我的外祖父来自香港附近的广东省。像许多中国南方的宗族一样，他的家族已经遍布世界各地。七个兄弟姐妹已经移民到印度尼西亚、香港和美国。在1949年的共产主义革命之前，我母亲的父亲一直穿梭于香港和上海之间，在这两个城市管理企业。1940年代末，他曾代表所有权人与上海牙膏厂的工人代表江泽民谈判。江泽民最终在1989年成为共产党的领袖，并在1993年成为中 国的总统。当共产党在1949年接管上海时，我母亲的家人搬到了香港，但在与我祖父闹翻后，我祖母带着三个孩子回到了上海，包括我母亲。然而，这对夫妇从未离婚，我的祖父通过向中国汇钱来支持我的祖母，直到他去世那天。
我母亲的家庭在共产党的统治下并没有受到影响。1949年革命后，中国共产党利用像我母亲这样的家庭作为外汇来源，并打破美国对中国实施的冷战贸易禁运。中共称这些家庭为 "爱国华侨"，这是向中国国内当局发出的信号，让他们对那些留守的亲属放松警惕。有一次，共产党人要求我的祖父管理中国国有石油公司--中国石油天然气集团公司的香港子公司。
我母亲那边的祖母是个人物。她年轻时是个美人，来自沿海城市天津的一个富裕家庭，在共产主义革命之前，天津是中国北方的商业和贸易中心。她每天早上4点起床，到附近的公园做健身操，买一杯豆浆和一个油条（一种煎饼状的面团）作为早餐，然后回到家里抽烟--在那个年代，抽烟对女人来说是很罕见的，并玩单人纸牌。在我祖父从香港汇款的支持下，她一生从未工作过一天，甚至在文化大革命最黑暗的日子里也有仆人，当时在西方受教育的人因赞成科学、民主和自由等西方思想而被成千上万的人杀害。我的祖母在 "爱国华侨 "的光环庇护下，毫发无伤。
我的祖母到了晚年仍然性格外向，很受欢迎。我喜欢在周末去她家。她会把自己的芝麻磨成美味的糊状，然后端出一盘盘蒸好的包子，这些软球大小的饺子里有肉和蔬菜，是她家乡天津的特色。
我母亲的童年要比我父亲幸福得多。和我的祖母一样，我的母亲也是那种喜欢热闹的人。她在同学中很受欢迎，对生活有着阳光般的看法。她的性格与我父亲的性格几乎 截然相反，尤其是当涉及到风险时。我母亲拥抱风险，我父亲则回避风险。我母亲后来发展出超乎寻常的良好投资直觉，使我的父母能够在香港和上海的房地产市场上大展宏图。
1965年，在党的允许下，我的父母结婚了。党政机关为他们分配了不同中学的教师工作。这就是当时的情况。党控制了一切。你不能选择你自己的工作或婚礼的日子。在上海向明中学，我父亲教中文和英语，他是通过听收音机里的课程来学习的。他还担任女子排球队的教练，她们经常争夺上海市的冠军。所有这些年的小心翼翼都得到了回报，学校的党委将我父亲评为 "模范教师"。
我母亲的学校离家有一个小时的自行车车程。她教数学，受到学生的喜爱。一个原因是她的勤奋；另一个原因是她善于从别人的角度看问题。我的父亲是一个 "我行我素 "的人。我的母亲则比较灵活。这种品质在教数学时非常有用，特别是在中国的中学，那里的课程变得很苛刻。她有能力从学生的角度看待问题，这使她能够更好地引导他们找到解决方案。在学校的政治运动中，她也是一个温和的声音，学生和老师因为意识形态上的过失而互相攻击。在大规模的批评会议上，当一个学生被挑出来的时候，我的母亲会介入，在对抗变得过于激烈之前结束对抗。学校里没有其他老师敢于这样做。但我母亲作为一个 "爱国华侨"的女儿的身份，给了她一些帮助的掩护。她的行动就像向溺水的人抛出一根绳子，她的学生永远不会忘记这一善举。直到今天，他们还在举行联欢会。
我母亲是三个孩子中的第二个，夹在两个男孩中间。我父母结婚后，我的叔叔们嘲笑我妈妈选择了一个来自卑微的 "五类黑人 "之一的男人。他们从来没有让我爸爸忘记，他们的地位很高，而且有更多的钱，是由香港的爷爷每月提供的津贴。我的一个叔叔用这笔钱买了他所在社区的第一辆摩托车，并确保我爸爸知道这件事。
我出生在文化大革命的中期。党把我的父母送到农村，向中国的农民学习，这个由毛主席想出来的方案摧毁了数百万人的生活，最后把中国的经济推向了一个沟渠。我的父母和我很幸运，我们没有失去在上海的居住许可，不像成千上万的上海居民被流放到中国版的西伯利亚，再也没有回来。我父母的学校允许他们轮流住在中国的农民中间，所以我从来不会孤单。
我出生时个头大，长得快。我无愧于我的中国名字，栋，意思是 "柱子"。我的体型--我最高时有六尺五寸，加上运动能力，使我在同龄人中成为自然的领导者。我的父母还培养了我对阅读的热爱。从我很小的时候起，我就收集了最好的关于中国神话人物、中国共产主义革命的英雄和中国抗日战争的漫画。我是在小嘎子的故事中长大的，小嘎子是一个在二战期间拿起枪杀日本侵略者的孩子，我天生爱国，而且喜欢讲故事。我的一帮朋友会围在一起听我讲述这些故事。我还会随心所欲地编造其他故事。我还记得我编造了一个疯狂的冒险故事，说一个山洞打开了，吞下了一个中国将军的车队。
这些漫画充满了人们为祖国和共产主义革命牺牲的故事，培养了我对中国的深深热爱。它们为我以后的生活定下了基调，使我相信我也应该为建设中国而献身。我被教育要把中国看作一个伟大的国家，并相信它的前景。
在上海，我们住在共产党当局于1952年从我父亲那里征用的同一所房子里。那是一栋英式排屋，位于淮海中路的一条小巷里，淮海中路是老法租界的一条主要大道，在1949年革命之前，这个地区 绿树成荫，由来自巴黎的公务员管理，是法国帝国的一部分。共产党人经常指示昔日的财产所有者住在他们老家的一个小角落里，这也是一种故意的策略，以显示国家的可怕力量。
我们被分配到二楼的两个房间。一位医生和他的家人占据了我祖父在一楼的旧客厅。这位医生在革命前曾在英国学习，他的公寓里堆满了外国医学杂志。一家远房亲戚住在我们上面的三楼。屋子里的十个人都共用一个卫生间和一个厨房。上海最好的面包店之一就在拐角处，任何时候都有诱人的烤面包的香味在我们的小巷里飘荡。
我的父母睡在我们房间一角的一张双人床上。我在另一个房间里睡了一张单人床。一个抽屉柜将我们分开。我的床边有一张小桌子，上面放着我们的珍贵财产--收音机。我父亲花了好几个小时趴在桌子前的凳子上学习英语。当我的父母在楼下做饭时，我把作业放在一边，收听有关过去中国英雄的节目，同样用心地听着叙述者和我父母上楼的脚步声。他们希望我专心致志地学习。像许多中国儿童一样，我是一个被遗弃的孩子。我在午餐时间自己回家，自己做午餐。在很小的时候，我也会自己做早餐。
我父亲对自己的命运感到愤怒，并对自己的怨恨耿耿于怀，把他的不快发泄在我身上。他把我拉到房间中间，在天花板上用两根电线吊着的脆弱的日光灯下，用皮带、手背或坚硬的木尺无情地打我。实际上，我是一个模范儿童。我是班上第一批被允许进入小红卫兵的人之一，这是一个由中国共产党批准的选择性儿童组织。我被任命为班主任，被认为是一个天生的领导者。但我父亲并不在乎。他还是打了我。
有一天，我忘记了一项家庭作业。中国的老师在通知家长他们的孩子犯错的时候非常勤快。那天晚上，我父 亲把我打了一顿，好像没有明天一样。楼下医生的妻子听到我的叫声，走上楼梯，敲了敲我们的门，并悄悄地让我父亲把它关掉。他停了下来。我的父母尊重那个家庭，特别是因为那个医生曾在西方学习。他的妻子后来成了我的救命恩人。每次我父亲向我扑来时，我都祈祷我的尖叫声能让她爬上楼梯。
我的父母告诉我，其实我的情况很好。其他父母为了惩罚他们的孩子，让他们在一个有棱角的洗衣板上跪了几个小时，这让他们的膝盖上的皮肤裂开。我不以为然。我仍然做着关于这些殴打的噩梦。我在冷汗中醒来，心跳加速。我父亲和我从来没有对过去进行过清算。他从未暗示过，回想起来，他对如此粗暴地处理我感到后悔。
虽然她在学校保护她的学生，但我的母亲从未给予我同样的礼遇。相反，她不是用殴打，而是用语言来表达她的不满。在我三十多岁的时候，她经常说我 "比一群牲畜还笨，比一堆蔬菜还蠢"。
"笨鸟先飞，"她会告诉我，强调如果我想有所作为，我需要比其他孩子更努力地工作。
因此，在家里，我是在一个贬低和惩罚的环境中长大的。赞美在当时就像鸡蛋一样稀少。我的父母因为我的错误而挑剔我。每当我尝到一点成功的甜头时，我母亲都会说："别太自大了"。最终，我与父母的大部分互动都变成了试图避免批评而不是赢得赞美。这并不是为了拥抱成就。而是为了逃避失败。我一直担心我不够好。
同时，从很小的时候起，我就经历了家门外的世界与我们小公寓的世界之间的巨大差距，在那里我被公认为是一个领导者、一个说书人、一个运动员，甚至是一个好人，而在那里我的父母似乎对我彻底失望了。也许这在来自中国的孩子中很常见，那里的期望很高，批评不断，而且父母认为孩子从失败中学习，而不是通过成功。随着我的成熟，这两个世界之间的关系越来越紧张。
然而，我将永远感激我的父母，因为他们帮助我早早地阅读，并大量阅读。他们都很清楚什么样的书会让我着迷。他们让我从漫画书开始。很快，我就开始阅读武侠小说，也就是激发李安导演的热门电影《卧虎藏龙》的那类武侠小说。
在一个当时人人都有兄弟姐妹的社会中，我作为独生子女长大，有很多时间是孤独的。所以我读书。武侠书，就像今天的哈利波特故事一样，把我拉进了一个想象的世界，里面充满了国王宫廷里复杂的关系、生死攸关的斗争、爱与恨、竞争与复仇、阴谋与诡计。我最喜欢的故事也遵循类似的轨迹。一个孩子目睹了他父母的谋杀。当他被袭击者追赶时，痛苦随之而来，他乞求食物，在冬天努力取暖，而袭击者一心想把孩子的家人从地球上抹去。他在荒野中迷失了方向，跌跌撞撞地进入一个山洞，找到了一个流动的和尚，他向他传授了武术的秘诀。经过多年的磨难，他回到了家，报了仇，并联合了帝国的武术家，为天下人带来和平。我在这个故事中看到了自己，在与自己的魔鬼作斗争，并战胜了自己的魔鬼。
我的小学位于锦江饭店附近，这是1949年前上海最著名的地标之一，也是当时上海仅有的两家接待外国旅客的饭店之一。我们离锦江饭店很近，这意味着市委宣传部经常组织外国人团体来参观学校。中国共产党把世界分为敌人和盟友，为了赢得国际支持，积极培养 "外国朋友"，如左翼知识分子、记者和政治家。每次一群 "外国朋友 "出现在我的学校，最好的数学学生就会被拉出来在黑板上进行计算，最好的运动员会被召来上体育课--这都是中国共产党的伟 大传统的一部分，即欺骗那些难以置信的同行，让他们承认中国社会主义的辉煌。
有一天，中国庞大的苏式体育官僚机构的代表来到我们学校。我们中一群运动能力较强的人被要求脱去内裤。这位官员研究了我的手和脚，宣布我应该成为一名游泳运动员。我父亲开始带我到小学附近的一个市政游泳池。他以典型的中国方式教我游泳：他把我扔进游泳池里。我挣扎着浮出水面，大口大口地喝了很多水。然而，在几个星期内，我已经准备好参加当地球队的选拔赛。在我六岁的时候，我赢得了一个位置。
游泳训练每周七天，在离我家40分钟步行距离的一个游泳池进行。每天早上，我5:30起床，给自己做了早餐，然后穿过上海蜿蜒的小巷前往游泳池。我经常挑战自己，寻找捷径。进入一个新的巷子，我永远不知道我将在哪里出来。我很快就知道，有很多路线可以到达同一个地方。我们从7点到8点游泳，之后我步行去学校。我们经常在下午进行第二次锻炼。会议在周末举行。我很快就成为同年龄组中仰泳第一，爬泳第二的选手。邻居的孩子是我的主要竞争对手；他最终进入了中国国家队。我们经常一起走到游泳池。在更衣室里，在我父亲鞭打我之后的早晨，我试图掩盖我手臂、背部和腿上的伤痕。但他注意到了这些。我告诉他，他很幸运，他父亲没有打他。他给了我一个悲伤的微笑。
我们的教练石教练是一个典型的中国教练：矮小、蹲着，脾气不好。上海的冬天很冷，但由于这个城市位于长江以南，根据中央政府的规定，所有的建筑都没有暖气。史教练会在冬天的早晨让我们做蝶泳，以打破泳池表面一夜之间硬化的薄冰层，从而开始锻炼。教练有时会把大暖瓶里的热水倒进池子里，看着我们像吃饱了的鱼一样，在温暖的地方扭来扭去，妄图避开寒气。他们认为这很滑稽。
在团队中也有好处。在下午的训练之后，我们有一顿像样的饭。在中国，米和肉仍然是定量供应的，但是在球队的食堂里，我们可以吃到瘦肉，而不仅仅是脂肪，还有优质的蔬菜，以及我们都很珍惜的东西：偶尔的鸡蛋。每年一次，我们会得到一只鸡带回家。我善于把多余的食物装进口袋，分给我的团队成员，以换取他们的忠诚。在那些日子里，食物是很珍贵的；这是成为群体领袖的一种方式。
游泳对今天的我有很大的贡献。它教会了我自信、毅力，以及有目的的努力所带来的快乐。通过游泳，我认识了远远超出我正常社交圈的人。我仍然感受到它的印记。
我小时候对政治只有最模糊的认识。我记得，当文化大革命在全国范围内造成混乱时，我走过政治海报，呼吁对阶级敌人进行无情的惩罚。我听到学校附近军营里的士兵高呼反对意识形态偏差和赞美中国共产党创始人毛泽东主席的口号。我看到戴着鸭舌帽的政治犯被装在敞开的卡车里穿过街道，走向处决。
然后在1976年9月9日，毛泽东去世。我和我八岁的同学对这意味着什么几乎一无所知。当学校宣布这个消息时，我们的老师开始哭，所以我们也开始哭。规定下来了，我们不允许玩耍或微笑。我们中的几个人因为太过吵闹而被训斥。
大约一年后，一位名叫邓小平的中国高级领导人在国内流亡多年后重新上台。邓小平策划逮捕了四人帮，一个聚集在毛泽东身边的极左派团体。1979年，他启动了历史性的改革，将中国转变为今天的经济大国。但我的家庭并没有经历这些划时代的变化。我的父母有其他计划。
FROM MY BACKGROUND, THERE WAS little reason to believe that I'd find myself at the nexus of economic and political power in China at the turn of the twenty-first century. I wasn't born into the red aristocracy—the offspring of the leaders of the elite group of Communists who seized power in China in 1949. Far from it. My personality also didn't seem suited for the role.
I was born in Shanghai in November 1968 into a family split between those who'd been persecuted after China's Communists came to power and those who hadn't. According to Communist doctrine, my father's side belonged to one of the "five black categories": landlord, rich peasant, counterrevolutionary, bad element, and rightist. Before the Communist revolution of 1949, my ancestors were landlords. They were doubly damned if you factor in the additional charge of having relatives overseas. Anywhere else in the world these would be marks of distinction, but in China of the 1950s and 1960s, economic success and international connections meant you were, as the Communists said, "born rats." The family's lowly status prevented my dad from attending better schools and saddled him with a grudge against the world that he'd carry all his life.
My father's people were landowning gentry from Suzhou, a small city in the Yangtze River delta known as the Venice of China thanks to its luxurious gardens and picturesque canals. Family legend has it that as Communist forces advanced in 1949 in their civil war against the Nationalist Army of Chiang Kai-shek, the Shum clan dumped its valuables down a well on the family compound. That land was subsequently expropriated by the Communist government and today is the site of a state- owned hospital. At a reunion years ago, an elderly relative gave me a very specific location and tried to convince me to dig up the family treasure. Seeing as China's government considers everything under the earth to be state property, I demurred.
My grandfather on my father's side was a prominent lawyer in Shanghai before the revolution. As the Communists tightened their grip on the nation, he, like many of the well-off, had a chance to flee. But my grandfather balked at the prospect of becoming a lowly refugee. To him, Hong Kong, a favored destination for migrants from Shanghai, could never compare with his home city, then known as the Paris of the East. Buying into Communist propaganda that the Party would partner with members of the capitalist class to build the "New China," he decided to stay.
My father never forgave his dad for that fateful decision, holding that his naive belief in the Party cost my dad his youth. In 1952, Party authorities shut down my grandfather's law firm and drove the whole family, including my father's two brothers and a sister, out of its three-story row house in Shanghai, which Grandpa had purchased with gold bars before the revolution. My grandfather took everyone back to Suzhou. Everyone, that is, except my dad, who, at ten years old, was directed to stay in Shanghai to finish grade school.
The next few years were difficult. My father bounced between a series of relatives, scrounging meals and a place to sleep. He often went to bed hungry. One uncle was particularly kind to my dad, even though the revolution hadn't been kind to him. Before the Communist takeover he'd been a successful businessman. The Communists took over his company and assigned him a job as a rickshaw driver at one of the factories he'd owned. The Communists were masters at that kind of treatment, designed to destroy a man's most prized possessions—his dignity and self-respect.
As the scion of a capitalist lawyer's family in a Communist country, my father learned to keep his head down. Living on his own made him resilient and taught him to survive. Still, his troubles only strengthened his anger at his father for keeping the family in China.
Growing up hungry and alone in Shanghai instilled in my dad a fear of forming deep connections with those around him. He hated owing anyone anything and just wanted to rely on himself. That same outlook was instilled in me, and, even today, I'm still uncomfortable feeling indebted. Only later, after I met the woman who'd become my wife, would I learn how isolating this can be. In the ebb and flow of life, if you're never beholden to anyone, Whitney would say, no one will ever be beholden to you and you'll never build deeper relationships. Although I spent years fearing my father, I now see him as a lonely figure who battled the world alone.
My father's disapproved-of class background made it impossible for him to attend one of China's better colleges. Instead, he was assigned to a teachers' training school in Shanghai where he majored in Chinese. Tall for his generation, over six feet, my dad starred on the school's volleyball team. His dogged industriousness and his athleticism must have caught my mother's eye. The two met at the teachers' college in 1962. My mother was also attractive, tall for a Chinese woman—five-eight—and also an athlete; she ran track. Outfitted in drab Mao suits and captured without an iota of expression in the postage-stamp-size black-and-white snapshots of the day, they still made a handsome couple.
My mother's family had overseas connections, but she and her relatives in China dodged persecution. My maternal grandfather hailed from Guangdong Province near Hong Kong. Like many southern Chinese clans, his family had spread across the world. Seven brothers and sisters had immigrated to Indonesia, Hong Kong, and the United States. Before the Communist revolution of 1949, my mother's father had shuttled between Hong Kong and Shanghai, managing businesses in both cities. At one point in the late 1940s, he represented the ownership in negotiations with a workers' representative from the Shanghai Toothpaste Factory named Jiang Zemin. Jiang would ultimately rise to become the head of the Communist Party in 1989 and China's president in 1993. When the Communists took over Shanghai in 1949, my mother's family moved to Hong Kong, but after a falling-out with my grandfather, my grandmother returned to Shanghai with the three children, including my mom. The couple never divorced, however, and my grandfather supported my grandmother by wiring money back to China until the day he died.
My mother's family didn't suffer under Communist rule. After the 1949 revolution, the Chinese Communist Party used families like my mother's as a source for foreign currency and to break the Cold War trade embargo that the United States had slapped on China. The Party called these families "patriotic overseas Chinese," a signal to authorities inside China to go easy on those relatives who'd stayed behind. At one point, the Communists asked my grandfather to run the Hong Kong subsidiary of China's state-owned oil company, the China National Petroleum Corporation.
My grandmother on my mother's side was a character. A beauty in her youth, she came from a wealthy family from the coastal city of Tianjin, which before the Communist revolution had been the commercial and trading hub of northern China. Ensconced in a Shanghai row house, which that side of the family never lost, she rose each morning at 4:00 for calisthenics at a nearby park, bought a cup of soybean milk and a youtiao, a cruller-shaped piece of fried dough, for breakfast, and retired to her home to smoke—rare for a woman in those days—and play solitaire. Supported by my grandfather's remittances from Hong Kong, she never worked a day in her life and had servants even during the darkest days of the Cultural Revolution, when people who'd been educated in the West were murdered by the thousands for the crime of favoring Western ideas like science, democracy, and freedom. My grandmother escaped unscathed, shielded by the aura of her association with "patriotic overseas Chinese."
My grandmother remained outgoing and popular into old age. I loved going to her place on weekends. She'd grind her own sesame seeds into a tasty paste and serve up platters of steamed baozi, softball-size dumplings stuffed with meat and vegetables, a specialty of her hometown, Tianjin.
My mother had a far happier childhood than my father. Like my grandmother, my mother was a gregarious sort. She was popular among her schoolmates and possessed a sunny view on life. Her personality was almost the polar opposite of my dad's, especially when it came to risk. My mother embraced it; my dad shunned it. My mother later developed uncannily good investment instincts that allowed my parents to ride real estate booms in both Hong Kong and Shanghai.
In 1965, with the Party's permission, my parents married. Party authorities assigned them jobs as teachers at different secondary schools. That's what happened back then. The Party controlled everything. You couldn't pick your own job or your wedding day. At Xiangming Secondary School in Shanghai, my dad taught Chinese and English, which he'd learned by listening to lessons on the radio. He also coached the girls' volleyball team and they regularly contended for the Shanghai municipal championship. All those years of being careful paid off when the school's Party committee named my father a "model teacher."
My mother's school was an hour's bike ride from home. She taught math and was beloved by her students. One reason was her diligence; the other was that she was adept at looking at things from other people's point of view. My father was a my-way-or-the-highway type of guy. My mother was more flexible. This quality came in handy when teaching math, especially in Chinese secondary school, where the curriculum becomes demanding. Her ability to see problems from a student's perspective allowed her to better guide them to a solution. She also was a voice of moderation as political campaigns rolled through the school and students and teachers attacked one another for ideological transgressions. During mass criticism sessions when a student was singled out, my mother would step in and end the confrontation before it got too violent. No other teacher at the school dared do that. But my mother's status as the daughter of a "patriotic overseas Chinese" gave her some cover to help. Her actions were like tossing a rope to a drowning person, a good deed her students never forgot. To this day, they still hold reunions.
My mother was the second of three children, wedged in between two boys. After my parents married, my uncles mocked my mom for choosing a man descended from one of the lowly "five black categories." They never let my dad forget that they were of an exalted status and had more money, courtesy of the monthly stipend from Grandpa in Hong Kong. One of my uncles bought the first motorcycle in his neighborhood with that cash and made sure my dad knew about it.
I was born in the middle of the Cultural Revolution. The Party sent my parents to the countryside to learn from China's peasants, a program thought up by Chairman Mao that destroyed the lives of millions of people and ended up driving China's economy into a ditch. My parents and I were lucky that we never lost our permits to live in Shanghai, unlike hundreds of thousands of Shanghai residents who were exiled to China's version of Siberia, never to return. My parents' schools allowed them to take turns living among China's peasants, so I was never alone.
I was born big and grew fast. I was worthy of my Chinese given name, Dong, which means "pillar." My size—I top out at six-five—and athleticism made me a natural leader among my peers. My parents also cultivated in me a love of reading. From my earliest days, I had the best collection of comics about Chinese mythical figures, the heroes of China's Communist revolution, and China's war against Japan. Raised on stories of Xiao Gazi, a kid who picked up a gun to kill Japanese invaders during World War II, I was naturally patriotic—and fond of storytelling. My gang of friends would crowd around to hear me recount those tales. I'd make others up as I went along. I still remember concocting a madcap adventure about a cave opening up to swallow the motorcade of a Chinese general.
Those comics, full of stories of people sacrificing themselves for the motherland and the Communist revolution, nurtured in me a deep love of China. They set the tone for my later life and fed a belief that I, too, should devote myself to building China. I was taught to see China as a great country, and to believe in its promise.
In Shanghai, we lived in the same house that Communist authorities had expropriated from my dad's father in 1952. It was an English-style row house on a lane off Huaihai Middle Road, a main boulevard in the old French Concession, a leafy district that before the revolution of 1949 had been administered by civil servants from Paris as part of France's imperial empire. The Communists often directed erstwhile property owners to live in a small corner of their old home, again a deliberate tactic to demonstrate the awesome power of the state.
We were allotted two rooms on the second floor. A doctor and his family occupied my grandfather's old living room on the first floor. The doctor had studied in England before the revolution and his flat overflowed with foreign medical journals. A family of distant relatives lived above us on the third floor. All ten people in the house shared a bathroom and a kitchen. One of Shanghai's premier bakeries was located around the corner and at all hours the tantalizing smell of baked bread wafted down our lane.
My parents slept on a double bed in one corner of our room. I had a single bed in another. A chest of drawers separated us. A small desk with our prized possession—a radio—was next to my bed. My father spent hours perched on a stool in front of it learning English. When my parents were downstairs cooking, I set aside my homework to tune into shows about Chinese heroes of the past, listening with equal intent to the narrator and for the footsteps of my parents ascending the stairs.
They wanted me to buckle down on my studies. Like many Chinese children, I was a latchkey kid. I came home by myself at lunchtime and made myself lunch. At an early age, I threw together breakfast, too.
Angry with his lot and nursing his resentments, my father took his unhappiness out on me. He'd pull me into the middle of the room under a flimsy fluorescent light hanging by two wires from the ceiling to beat me mercilessly, with belts, or the back of his hand, or a rock-hard wooden ruler. Actually, I was a model child. I was one of the first in my class let into the Little Red Guard, a selective children's organization sanctioned by the Chinese Communist Party. I'd been appointed a class proctor and recognized as a natural leader. But my dad didn't care. He beat me anyway.
One day I forgot a homework assignment. Chinese teachers are very assiduous when it comes to informing parents of their children's miscues. That evening, my father thrashed me as if there were no tomorrow. The wife of the doctor downstairs heard my yelps, walked up the stairs, knocked on our door, and quietly asked my father to knock it off. He stopped. My parents respected that family, especially because the doctor had studied in the West. His wife turned out to be my savior. Each time that my father lunged for me, I prayed that my screams would get her to climb the stairs.
My parents told me that I actually had it pretty good. Other parents punished their kids by making them kneel for hours on a ridged washboard, which split the skin on their knees. I'm not convinced. I still have nightmares about these beatings. I wake up in a cold sweat with my heart racing. My father and I have never had a reckoning about the past. He never gave a hint that, retrospectively, he was regretful about handling me so roughly.
While she protected her students at school, my mother never afforded me the same courtesy. Instead, she expressed her disapproval, not with beatings, but with words. Well into my thirties, she'd often remark that I was "dumber than a herd of livestock and denser than a bunch of vegetables."
"Stupid birds need to start flying early," she'd tell me, stressing that if I was going to make something of myself, I'd need to work a lot harder than other kids.
So, at home, I grew up in an environment of degradation and punishment. Compliments were as rare as eggs were at the time. My parents picked on me for my mistakes. "Don't get cocky," my mother said every time I tasted a little success. Eventually, most of my interactions with my parents became attempts to avoid criticism rather than win praise. It wasn't about embracing achievement. It was about escaping failure. I constantly worried that I wasn't good enough.
At that same time, from an early age I experienced this yawning gap between the world outside my home, where I was recognized as a leader, a raconteur, an athlete, even a nice person, and the world of our tiny flat, where my parents seemed thoroughly disappointed with me. Perhaps this is common among kids from China, where expectations are high and criticism constant, and where parents believe that children learn by failure, not through success. As I matured, the tension grew between these two worlds.
I'll always feel grateful to my parents, however, for helping me to read early and read a lot. Both knew exactly what kind of books would enthrall me. They started me with comic books. I soon graduated to wuxia xiaoshuo, the martial arts novels of the type that would inspire director Ang Lee's hit film Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.
Growing up an only child in a society where at the time everyone had siblings, I spent a lot of time alone. So I read. The martial arts books, like the Harry Potter stories of today, pulled me into an imaginary universe filled with complicated relationships in the courts of kings, life-and-death struggles, love and hate, rivalry and revenge, plots and schemes. My favorite tales followed a similar trajectory. A child witnesses the murder of his parents. Misery follows as he begs for food and struggles to keep himself warm in the winter as he's chased by his assailant, who is intent on wiping the child's family from the face of the earth. Lost in the wilderness, he stumbles into a cave to find an itinerant monk who teaches him the secrets of wushu. After years of hardship, he returns home, exacts revenge, and unites the empire's martial artists to bring peace to all those under heaven. I saw myself in this story, battling and beating my own demons.
My elementary school was located near the Jinjiang Hotel, one of Shanghai's most famous pre- 1949 landmarks and, at the time, one of only two hotels in the city that accommodated foreign travelers. Our proximity to the Jinjiang meant that the city's Propaganda Department often organized groups of foreigners to tour the school. The Chinese Communist Party divided the world into enemies and allies and, to win support internationally, aggressively cultivated "foreign friends" such as left-wing intellectuals, journalists, and politicians. Each time a group of "foreign friends" showed up at my school, the best math students would be trotted out to perform calculations on the blackboard and the best athletes would be summoned for a gym class—all part of a great Communist Chinese tradition of bamboozling incredulous fellow travelers into acknowledging the brilliance of Chinese Socialism.
One day a representative from China's vast Soviet-style sports bureaucracy came to our school. A group of the more athletic among us was told to strip to our undershorts. The bureaucrat studied my hands and feet and pronounced that I should be a swimmer. My father began taking me to a municipal pool near my primary school. He taught me to swim in typical Chinese fashion: he tossed me into the pool. I struggled to the surface and gulped down a lot of water. Within weeks, however, I was ready for a tryout with a local team. At the age of six, I won a spot.
Swimming practice was held seven days a week at a pool forty minutes' walking distance from my house. Each morning I got up at 5:30, made myself breakfast, and headed out through Shanghai's serpentine alleys to the pool. I used to challenge myself to find shortcuts. Entering a new alley, I'd never know where I was going to come out. I learned fast that there were many routes to get to the same place. We swam from 7:00 to 8:00, after which I walked to school. We often had a second workout in the afternoon. Meets were held on weekends. I soon became number one at the backstroke and number two at the crawl in my age group. A neighbor's kid was my chief competition; he ultimately made China's national team. We used to walk to the pool together. In the changing room, on the mornings after my dad had whipped me, I tried to hide the welts on my arms, back, and legs. But he noticed them. I told him he was lucky that his father didn't beat him. He gave me a sad smile.
Our trainer, Coach Shi, was a typical Chinese coach: short, squat, with a bad temper. Shanghai's winters were cold, but because the city is situated south of the Yangtze River, under rules set by the central government none of the buildings were heated. Coach Shi would kick off workouts on winter mornings by having us do the butterfly to break up a thin layer of ice that had hardened overnight on the pool's surface. Coaches would sometimes pour hot water from big thermoses into the pool just to watch us, like fish wriggling after food, thrash around in the warm spots in a vain attempt to avoid the chill. They thought this was hilarious.
There were benefits to being on the team. Following afternoon workouts, we got a decent meal. Rice and meat were still rationed in China, but in the team's canteen we were treated to lean meat, not just fat, good-quality vegetables, and, something we all treasured: the occasional egg. Once a year we were given a chicken to take home. I became adept at pocketing extra food, which I'd dole out to my fellow team members in exchange for their loyalty. Food was precious in those days; it was one way to become leader of the pack.
Swimming contributed enormously to who I am today. It taught me self-confidence, perseverance, and the joy of a purposeful endeavor. Through swimming, I met people far outside my normal social circle. I still feel its imprint.
I had only the haziest sense of politics as a boy. I remember walking past political posters calling for class enemies to be mercilessly punished as the Cultural Revolution sowed countrywide chaos. I heard soldiers in an army barracks near my school chanting slogans against ideological deviation and in praise of Communist China's founder, Chairman Mao Zedong. I saw political prisoners wearing dunce caps being driven through the streets in open trucks, heading toward execution.
Then on September 9, 1976, Mao died. My eight-year-old classmates and I had little understanding of what it meant. When the school announced it, our teachers began crying, so we started crying, too. The rule came down that we weren't allowed to play or smile. Several of us were reprimanded for making too much noise.
About a year later, a senior Chinese leader named Deng Xiaoping returned to power after years in internal exile. Deng masterminded the arrest of the Gang of Four, a group of ultra-leftists who'd gathered around Mao. And in 1979 he launched historic reforms that would transform China into the economic power it is today. But my family wasn't going to live through those epochal changes. My parents had other plans.