My friend, Dr. Art Chen, asked me to post another article from him  looking for help concerning his relatives and the earliest “returning sea turtles”. Below is his article.

Two Patriotic Chinese, My Cousins

Art Chen

12/13/2017

Recently there is much news about the large percentages of foreign educated Chinese returning to China. Among many reasons are:

"Thebenefits include special project incubators, funds, tax cuts, easier access to permanent residence in first-tier cities and others," he said. "From an entrepreneurial standpoint, they're quite appealing."[1]

These words were backed by the numbers. For example, China has so far  set up 350 industrial parks exclusively for the foreign-educated, where over 27,000 enterprises have settled.

How time has changed for the better for overseas Chinese students.

It is great that a prosperous China can now attract back oversea educated  Chinese but what about the few Chinese who returned to China right after the founding of PRC (1949 – 1955). Some were already famous engineers notably, Qian Xuesen, the father of China’s rocket  program. He went back, in part because he lost his security clearance due to McCarthyism.

Many were like my two cousins, who just received their advanced degrees.

One from my mother’s side was Wan Chia Hwang, who received his Ph.D.  in Physics/Mechanicsfrom Cambridge. The other from my father’s side was Chen Chih Zhong ( 陈致忠 I am not sure of the Chinese characters of the other name Wan Chia Hwang 万嘉璜?), who finished his Masters in Civil Engineering from Purdue. In 1981 when I met them they were professors in Tsinghua University.

My older cousins went back to China in early 1950’s purely out of patriotism;  they wanted to help to build a new China. They left behind the opportunities for a better material life in the west. They had no illusions on how difficult lifewould be for them in China. Cousin Chen visited us before he left for China and gave us his shortwave radio  (a Hellicrafters) saying that he knew that it would not be permitted in the new China.  Cousin Wan went back thru Hong Kong and did not even stop to say goodbye to his  father, a relatively well-to-dobusinessman; it broke his father’s heart.  When I saw him, I asked him whetherhe tried to meet Zhou En-Lai, a distant relative of  the Wan family, he said simply no.

It is my opinion they contributed to building the new China by education. I guess that as a civil engineer, cousin Chen may have been involved in designing civil defense structures as he was with Harbin Military College(?) before he moved toTsinghua. During  our brief visit in 1981, we exchanged pleasantries but did not talk about our past lives. We exchanged small gifts.

Did they have any regret for the choices they made? I don’t know.  But seeing the huge progress that China have made since their return, they must be happy with whatever contributions they made.

Why am I writing this piece? At my age, I am trying to track down my family history  and if any reader of this blog from Tsinghua have any information on my cousins, I would appreciate any help. The cousins also have children, which we don’t have any contact. Two, I hope this piece provide an alternate window to the currentf inancial orientation of every society and remind readers that there was and hopefully still is other greater contribution one can make to the world. Finally, I hope this blog would stimulate organizations such as Tsinghua to recognize and celebrate these early overseas Chinese returnees for their contributions to build the new China.

For anyone whois interested in helping our family, he/she can contact my brother, LincolnChen, President of the China Medical Board. CMB has an office in Beijing, Lincoln can be reached at lchen@cmbfound.org.

[1]http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2017-09/12/c_136604325.htm