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c h a p t e r 1 1  Americanized Yee arrived in New York on September 15, 1955. After staying overnight in King’s Crown Hotel near Morningside Drive, he moved to an apartment on West 114th Street. A month later, he moved again to 165 West 91st Street, sharing an apartment with Chu Linsun, a Chinese medical doctor. The first letter he received upon arrival came from Whitehill, who invited him to a weekend stay with the Olivers at Mount Kisco, north of Manhattan, on September 23 and 24. In the letter, Whitehill implored Yee to consider writing a review of The Art of Beatrix Potter by Anne Carroll Moore. He sought this opportunity for Yee after a discussion in late August with his good friend Francis Brown, the book review editor for the New York Times. Whitehill knew that Yee would be reluctant because of his tight schedule, yet he reasoned that the New York Times paid generously and that book reviews would help him gain more readers and increase his own book sales. “Hence I regard this as a matter of considerable importance.”1 Yee took the advice and contributed his review “With an Appeal to the Heart,” which came out in November. Beatrix Potter, known for her enchanting children’s books, set many of her stories in the English Lakes. Yee met her after the publication of his first Silent Traveller book in 1938. He recalled how he discovered The Tale of Peter Rabbit and other books by Potter during his early days in London. He briefly spoke of Potter’s accomplishments and then made some precise and insightful observations about her life and creativity. He noted the dynamic interchanges between the text and illustrations in her works: “Writing and illustration are fused in her works to a greater degree than they are in the works of any comparable author-artist I know. What words cannot convey is revealed in the pictures which leave the story to be told by the words. And both words and pictures are permanently memorable.”2 It was a short but engaging piece. During the next few years, Yee wrote six more reviews for the New York Times, all related to Chinese culture or art. Because of New York’s proximity to Boston, Yee was able to visit his friend Yang 170 americanized 171 Lien-sheng in Cambridge every few weeks. He consulted Yang about his teaching, family issues, and writing plan. Indeed, out of respect for Yang’s scholarly insights, Yee occasionally sent his lecture notes to Yang for comment and review. The Yang family had recently moved to their new house on Sacramento Place. They received friends and visitors almost every day. The family warmly welcomed Yee to stay and dine with them at any time. They treated him like a family member, and their children regarded him as their “No. 1 Uncle.” Yee compiled a new collection of Chinese poems in 1956. Entitled Chung-ya jueju baishou (One Hundred Poems by Zhong-ya), it was thread-bound in the traditional Chinese book design. Calligrapher and artist Chung-ho Chang inscribed the book title. To that collection, Yang Lien-sheng and Tsun-jen Liu of Hong Kong University contributed the Foreword and Postscript, respectively. Both of them celebrated Yee’s natural style and approach to his subject. “Yee mostly writes about nature and human emotions,”Yang notes,“and, like beautiful adolescent girls, his poems hold a kind of simple and pure beauty.”3 Yee also became a frequent visitor to Van Wyck Brooks’s enormous house in Bridgewater, Connecticut. He was, as Gladys described, a “migratory bird,” whom they generously and warmly sheltered whenever he “alighted in the vicinity of Bridgewater.”Yee was a “perfect guest.” He often stayed in his room after breakfast, concentrated on writing, and emerged before lunch for a slow stroll with Brooks. In that old New England village, amidst a most pastoral setting, these two writers from entirely different backgrounds talked about nature, flowers, childhood, and Chinese philosophy and culture. Brooks’s mind was thoroughly engaged in “easy, happy communication with that of Chiang Yee.”4 On Brooks’s seventieth birthday, February 16, 1956, Yee sent a congratulatory message prepared in beautiful script: Confucius said that at 40, he had no more perplexities. At 50, he knew what was the bidding of Heaven. At 60, nothing he heard disturbed him. At 70, he could follow the dictates of his own heart.5 Brooks...

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