Floating world of all things

Author: Sun Yaodong
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2004-04-01
Features: The narrator of this book, Mr. Sun Yaodong, is a rare old Shanghai figure whose legendary experiences, if thoroughly explored, would be enough to fill three or five books. He was born in Anhui Shou County in 1912, with his great-uncle Sun Jian as a tutor to Emperor Guangxu. Both his grandfather and father were officials. Born in Beijing and raised in Shanghai, he attended St. John's University, studied in the United States, specializing in finance, and returned to Shanghai for development. He worked as a comprador in a French commercial firm and as the manager of Chongqing Silver Company. During the () era, he served as the president of the Revival Bank and a supervisor of the Bank of China. He also served as a confidential secretary to the major collaborator Zhou Fohai. After the victory in the War of Resistance against Japan, he was imprisoned, later contacting the Communist Party of China underground organization and working secretly under Yang Fan, recruiting important figures from the Military Affairs Commission of the Nationalist Government, such as Deng Baoguang. During the transition of power, he contributed to the farewell of the old and the welcome of the new. In 1955, following the (wrongful case) of Pan Hannian and Yang Fan, he was imprisoned and sent to the Baimaoling Farm in Anhui for labor reform. In 1975, he was granted amnesty and returned to Shanghai, later serving as a senior advisor to the Overseas Chinese Committee of the Xuhui District People's Political Consultative Conference in his later years. He once possessed wealth comparable to Tu Zhu and also experienced poverty like a beggar; he associated with high-ranking officials of the Party and state but also with major collaborators; he married a dance girl and had affairs with celebrities. With such a prominent family background and such a colorful life, spanning Confucianism, business, and politics, or black, gray, and red; or Beijing and Shanghai; or Chinese and Western, he swung between the heavens and the earth, between papered-in luxury and lonely solitude, with twists and turns, a mottled and varied life. Without personal visits and firsthand accounts, even Shakespeare reborn could not have woven such a bizarre, dramatic, and captivating narrative.