From Rednecks to Red China by Depaulis Anne

Author:Depaulis, Anne [Depaulis, Anne]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781508573999
Published: 2015-03-09T22:00:00+00:00

Professor Phen (photo A.D.)

During one of our many discussions, we discovered that Phen’s father was one of the biggest Art Collectors in China with a passion for antique books. He decided, in the early days of Communism, to donate his book collection to the Beijing Library. In retrospect, this proved to be the right decision as, during the Cultural Revolution, many valuable treasures were destroyed. Millions of books were burned in those days, old and new. When Phen was arrested in the early part of the Cultural Revolution, he owned a lot of antiques and artwork inherited from his family. “The Red Guards confiscated everything I had, while I was in jail.” His eyes flashed with anger at that point. We were astonished to hear that he recovered most of his treasures, a few years later. That included a small piece of jade dating back to the Shang dynasty (around 1000 years B.C.), a treasured gift from his father. One evening, he waited until dark and pulled out a small pouch from underneath a cabinet in the living room. With a sparkle in his eyes, he showed us the content. “See”, he said “My father gave me this piece of jade when I was a young boy”. He looked transformed and I could tell that piece of jade held great value to him. It was about one inch long and half an inch wide, translucent green with brown hues. Tears filled his eyes as he held it close to his chest.

Professor Phen had kept up the tradition of an English breakfast, as a reminder of his time in England. Every morning, shortly after we got up, he trotted off to the kitchen to prepare this daily ritual. The maid, according to him, had no credentials for this. The bacon was not the crispy one you got in England but it made an interesting version of ‘bacon and eggs’. Each day we looked forward to our dinner to sample new Shanghai-style dishes and hear more fascinating stories. Meals were served with the best rice in town, according to Phen, who used his connections to get his monthly supply. We once had the famous Shanghai ‘drunken chicken’ for the first time, cooked in rice wine with lots of fresh ginger. At that point, college food was only just a vague memory…

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