In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

In September 1926 I entered the elementary section of St. Ignatius College (later registered as Xuhui Middle School by the KMT1 Bureau of Education). The principal of the elementary school was Rev. Aloysius Tsang S.J. He was later dean of my high school and eventually Bishop of Shanghai when I returned to the city after my long stint in prison. Thus he witnessed all the major turning points of my life. In those days school discipline was very strict. In 1927 when the KMT Northern Expedition reached Shanghai, the school was temporarily closed and the students sent home—and from that moment my luck began to change. On Saturday 8 April my mother felt unwell and took to her bed. In fact she had had a brain haemorrhage and after a while became paralysed on one side and could no longer speak clearly. My father sought the opinion of a Chinese doctor and he gave her a few injections. On Sunday he came to see her again and said that she was a bit better. On Monday morning he said that she was on the mend. My father then sent me to the church to ask the priest to say a mass for my mother, but when I returned to the house all I could hear inside was moaning and crying so I knew my mother had died. I had not been able to be present at the time of her death. A year later, while I was at school, my father came to see me, bearing a box of chocolate candies. Apparently my father had had a setback in business and had been obliged to sell his home in the village and all his rosewood furniture. He said that he wanted to go far away and not return for several years. So he left enough money to permit me to finish my middle school studies at St. Ignatius College. My mother died on 10 April 1927, when I was not yet 11 years old. On this day I was also to lose my father. My father patted me on the head and went 1. The KMT or Kuomintang ruled China from 1928 to 1949. 5 St. Ignatius College (1926–32) 26 The Memoirs of Jin Luxian away. I stood there like a wooden statue watching his back slowly disappear. Then I returned alone to the study room and lowered my head to hide my tear-filled eyes. In this manner my childhood days came to an end—so brief, a mere ten years more or less. Nonetheless my mother’s deep respect for God, her warm and affectionate character, as well as my father’s reticence and generosity have left a deep impression on me. When it came to the vacation, the other students went home, but I had none to return to, so remained alone at school. When my family had been prosperous , relatives frequently came with food to visit me; after my father’s bankruptcy nobody ever came again. After one year, my father reappeared. He had found new work, but not as good as before, with a lower salary. He lodged at the company, leaving me, my sister and younger brother at the school. When it came to the winter and summer holidays he rented a room at an inn and had my brother and me stay there. The inn provided food and once a week we would go to see my father at the company to collect our pocket money. Then in 1931 my father got ill with pneumonia. Today this disease is not so serious and can be cured with an injection of penicillin, but in those days there was no effective medicine. He first went to what was in those days called St. Mary Hospital, but when they could not cure him he discharged himself and lived for a while with my maternal grandfather and consulted a doctor of Chinese medicine. I knew that my father was gravely ill and asked Rev. Tsang for furlough to be able to visit my father, but he would not permit me to go. Later on that day, just as I was about to go to bed, Tsang suddenly let me go because my aunt’s husband had arrived to tell me that my father was critically ill. He took me to my grandfather’s house where I found my father had already died. I had not been able to attend the deathbed of either of...

Share