Preface

These are the words of my uncle:

I was born on November 22, 1924 (October 22 in the Lunar calendar) in the Na Looi Village, Na Tai "Bo" (District), Taishan County, Guangdung Province, China.  It is a typical peasant's village in the countryside.  I grew up there and went through 5th grade school there.

Throughout eight years of the War (1937-1945) and four years thereafter (1945-1949), I moved from country to city, from south to north, and from coast to the interior of China.  Those journeys took me through five provinces, including Guangdung, Guangsi, Geizhou, Szechuan, and Hunan.

On August 31, 1949, after graduation from Hsiang Ya Medical College in Changsha, Hunan, I came to the United States for internship and post graduate training.  One month after that, on October 1, 1949, the Communists took over China and proclaimed the founding of the People's Republic of China.  China and the United States cut off relationships.  I settled in the United States ever since.

In April 1982, 33 years after I left China, my wife Yung-Tsing Wong, M.D., my daughter, and I returned to China as tourists.  The five-week trip took us through ten major cities and many spectacular places, including the Great Wall, the Forbidden Palace, the Three Gorges of Long River and the beautiful Li River.

Based on the above background and my knowledge, experience and memory on China, I wrote this manuscript "My Roots in China."  It is not intended to be an autobiography, but merely my attempt to tell my children, grandchildren and relatives something about China and their roots, so they would not forget their Chinese heritage.

I am a retired general surgeon, neither a writer nor artist.  I hope this manuscript would sound more like storytelling than boring lectures.  I also hope that my drawings and diagrams would partly compensate the lack of photo pictures.

The translation of names and places in this manuscript will follow the pronunciation of the Beijing dialect, which is the national and common language.  Cantonese dialect which is my spoken dialect at home will be used in this manuscript where applicable.  Taishanese dialect which is my native tongue is quite variable and therefore will be used only occasionally.  Confusion will be inevitable.

There are numerous errors in English, grammar and typing and spelling.  I shall leave the correction and polishing to the new generations.

Chi-Chao Chi, M.D.
Lt. Col. USAF (ret.)
Spokane, Washington, U.S.A.
1990