Father and I

By Yang Chen Ning

Translated by Mei Zuyan from Forever Tsinghua Yuan, p.148-162, Beijing Publishing House, Beijing,2000.

I
       When I was born in Heifei, Anhui Province, father was a teacher at a high school in Anqing City. Anqing was also called Huaining at the time. Father named me Chen Ning, the word Chen is the generation designation of the Yang family, and the word Ning represents Huaining. When I was not yet one year old, father was admitted to be a student going abroad for study on Anhui Province scholarship. Before he left, a picture was taken of the family of us three in a corner of the courtyard of our old Hefei residence. Father was standing straight in his long gown and ceremonial jacket. I would rather doubt if he had worn a western suit before that. Two years later, from a photograph he sent mother from Columbia University, his attire and air had all advanced into the twentieth century. Father was a very handsome man, his high spirit and aspiration were clearly evident in this photo.

       Father entered Stanford University in the fall of 1923. After he earned the bachelor’s degree in the following year, he moved on to the graduate school of Columbia University. Some forty years later when I first visited Stanford University, I joined in a dinner of the Chinese Student Club in a small house. This house was built in the early twentieth century with donation from the Chinese community in San Francisco to help Chinese students from being discriminated in their livelihood. The lower floor was for student activities and the upper floor provided accommodation for a small number of students. This house was still standing in the 1960’s but was later torn down. That night before the dinner, a fellow showed me a large wooden chest downstairs which contained an album of the 1924 Stanford University yearbook and also a very precious group picture of members of the Chinese Club. There were also kept minutes of meetings of the Chinese Club for the year 1923.

       In 1928, father received his Ph.D. degree from Columbia University and came home by boat. Mother and I went to Shanghai to meet him. He was practically a total stranger to me at this time. Several days later, the three of us and our maid-servant Sister Wang went to Xiamen by boat where father was to assume his position as a professor at the Department of Mathematics of Xiamen University.

       Life during the year in Xiamen was quite happy as I recall, it was also a year when I learned a great deal from father. Previous to this, mother had taught me nearly 3000 Chinese characters, I also learned by private tutorship the Longwen Bianying by memory but had no access to the new form of education. In Xiamen, father used large and small balls to demonstrate the movement of the sun, earth and moon. He taught me the English alphabets and also simple arithmetic problems. On the other hand, he did not overlook my education in traditional Chinese culture. He taught me Tang dynasty poems, maybe 30 to 40 poems; the chronological order of the past dynasties; the codes named the “celestial stems” and the “earthly branches” that were used in designating years on the calendar and also ages of people.

       Father loved to sing Beijing opera when he was young. In the year in Xiamen he still sang “I were a bird in a cage, unable to stretch my wings ...” However, he did not teach me to sing Beijing opera, rather popular songs of the time, like “Several thousand years across history in continuity …” and “Chinese youth, Chinese youth …” etc.

       Father was very good at the game of Go. He started to teach me to play Go that year. At first he gave me advantage of 16 pieces, several years later it reduced to 9 pieces, but I never learned the real skill from him. He still gave me advantage of 7 pieces when we played Go again in Geneva in 1962.

       Father and mother were all very young in those years. A picture was taken in 1929 at the Sunshine Rock at Gulang Yu in Xiamen though I did not look very happy in it. Over thirty years later, my third brother thought my father and mother should bring this photo when they fly to meet me in Geneva in 1960, father said “Don’t bring it, I scolded Chen Ning that day, that’s why he looked so unhappy.” These are things that cannot be understood by those who had not been parents.

       After one year in Xiamen University, father was appointed by Tsinghua University in Peiping (now called Beijing) as a professor. The three of us moved into Xi Yuan No.19, a quadrangle house, in Tsinghua Yuan (as the campus was called) in 1929. Xi Yuan was enlarged in the 1930’s and our house number changed to No.11.

       We lived in Tsinghua Yuan for 8 years, from 1929 until the first year of the war against the Japanese. The eight years in Tsinghua Yuan was very beautiful and very happy in my memory. China then was quiet unstable, full of internal and external strife. But our life within the walls of Tsinghua Yuan was secluded from the outside and was very peaceful. My playmates and I roamed all over the campus and had a great time. We had climbed nearly every tree and examined every blade of grass.

       The above was what I wrote on p.112 of my book Forty Years of Learning and Teaching , published in 1985. The places where we played were mainly around what is today called Jinchun Yuan. At that time, all the area from today’s Hospital, Jinchun Lou, Weilun Center in the northwest, to the now Swimming Pool and the Supply Depot in the south, Jing Zhai in the east and along the river beside the now Meng Weimin Building in the north were not built up and was all unused land. The trees and bushes, mounds, lotus ponds and plots of land near several farm families were all ideal playground for us.

       The primary school, Chengzhi School, where I attended is now used by the Labor Union. I studied there for four years beginning 1929. I started out everyday from the northeast corner of Xi Yuan, followed the path southward, and then southeastward, climbed a small hill and reached the campus wall, from there eastward along the wall and arrived at the school. This trek would take about 20 minutes if no butterflies appeared on the way or no important events such as migration of ants were encountered.

       Another way I often took when riding the bicycle was the main road going northeast from home. The far end of this road was the bridge near the former Hospital (now Meng Minwei Building). Whenever there were athletic meets going on, I would ride the bike along this road to the Stadium and join schoolmates from Chengzhi to cheer for the home team.

       Father often went with me along a third path going eastward from home to Guyue Tang or the Science Building. This path was particularly quiet, after passing the bushes there was a long stretch with farmlands on the one side and dirt mounds on the other. Very few passers-by were met. The scenery would be different in the four seasons, but the secluded atmosphere remained the same. In my childhood then, I did not perceive the time I spent with father alone was really the most intimate time we had together.

       When I was 9 or 10, father knew I was strong in mathematics. When I entered high school at 11, this was even more evident. Thinking back, if he had taught me analytical geometry and algebra then, I would have learned it fast and made him happy, but he did not do this. In the summer between the first and second year, father asked Professor Lei Haizong to have one of his students, Mr. Ding Zeliang to teach me Mengzi (teachings of Menfucious). Mr. Ding was a well-learned man, he did not only teach me the text of Mengzi but also passed on knowledge about ancient history that I could not have learned from school textbooks. The next summer, he taught me the second half of Mengzi, so I was able to recite the complete text in my high school days.

       Father had a lot of books on mathematics in English and German on his shelves that I often browsed through. The ones gave me the most impression were some theorems in Theory of Numbers by G.H. Hardy and E.M. Wright, and the many space group diagrams in Finite Group Theory by A. Speiser. Because I did not know foreign language well enough that I was not able to understand many details. I often asked father about them, but he always said: “Take it slowly, do not hurry,” and would explain only one or two basic concepts occasionally.

       When the war against the Japanese broke out in 1937, our family moved back to our old home in Hefei. After the Japanese took Nanjing, we traveled by way of Hankou, Hong Kong, Haiphong, Hanoi, and arrived at Kunming in March of 1938. I attended the second year senior high of the Kunhua High School for half a year and then enrolled in the Southwest Associate University in the fall of 1938, skipping the third year.

       During 1938 to 1939, father guided me into closer contact with modern mathematics. He borrowed Pure Mathematics by G.H. Hardy and Men of Mathematics by E.T. Bell for me and discussed with me the concepts of Set Theory, the Different Infinities and the Continuum Hypothesis, that all left indelible impressions in me. Forty years later, I wrote on p.74 of Selected Papers, 1945-1980, with Commentary (Freeman and Company, 1983):

       Many of my colleagues in the physics world approach mathematics with a pragmatic attitude. But probably due to influence from my father, I rather loved mathematics. I appreciated the sense of value of mathematicians and admired the beauty and power of mathematics: in tactics it has finesse and flexibility, and in strategy it has far-reaching insight. Some of its delicate concepts are really the basic structures that control the physical world.

       Although father infused in me the spirit of mathematics, he did not want me to study mathematics because he thought mathematics was not practical enough. When I applied for college entrance I selected Chemistry as I liked it. In the preparation for entrance examination, I studied third year Physics on my own and found it suited my taste more. Thus eventually I entered the Department of Physics of the Southwest Associated University.

       In the fall of 1941, I went to see Professor Wu Dayou about the preparation of my graduation thesis,

       He gave me a copy of Reviews of Modern Physics and asked me to study a certain article. This article was about the relation between molecular spectrum and group theory. I brought the paper home to show it to father. Father knew group theory well although he had not studied physics. He showed me the book Modern Algebraic Theories by Dickson. Dickson was father’s adviser at the University of Chicago. This book suited me perfectly because it was very concise with no useless language. Within 20 pages, it explained the “Representation Theory” in Group Theory with remarkable clarity. I learned from it the splendor of Group Theory and its far-reaching application in physics that had decisive influence in my later work. This realm is called the Principle of Symmetry. My interest in the principle of symmetry originated from the guidance given by Professor Wu that year[7].

This year (1997), for celebration of the ninetieth birthday of Professor Wu, Zou Zude and I prepared a paper[8] on calculation of the vibration frequency of C60 by method of group theory. C60 is a molecule with very high degree of symmetry and is most suited to be studied by group theory (the degree of symmetry is so high that not only was it not anticipated by Professor Wu in 1941 but neither by me when I wrote the above in 1983.)

The eight years during the war were the hardest of times, but it was also a period that I acquired new knowledge the fastest. My third brother Chen Han described in the summer of 1945 the conditions of the family:

In the summer of 1945, as big brother obtained a scholarship to go to the United States for doctor’s degree work, father told us in high spirit that the hard and long-drawn fight against the Japanese would soon be over and the anti-Fascist German war would also come to an end. Our family survived this difficult time, despite mental and material hardships, all seven members managed to remain in good health, and the youngsters gainful in their studies. Particularly, we brothers and sister were kind to our parents and maintained close ties with each other that were indeed exceptional. This relation of harmony was treasured by all of us.

It has been 51 years since the victory of the war, father, mother and our fifth brother Chen Fu (born in 1937 and passed away in 1985－Chen Ning) had long since been resting in Dongshan of Suzhou. Thinking back of the eight hard years during the war, the family could be said to be a perfect, harmonious and loving group[9].

I remember well the day of August 28, 1945 when I was to fly to India on my way to the United States. Early in the morning, father alone accompanied me riding rickshaws to the bus depot on Tuodong Road in the southeast of Kunming for the trip to Wujia Ba Airport. As we left home, my younger brothers and sister all appeared quite sad but mother remained calm and did not weep. At Tuodong Road father calmly said some words in encouragement to me. Then I got into the very crowded bus. I could see father waving to me at first, but later he was pushed by the throng and was out of sight. Luckily I met quite a few fellow students on the bus all going to the US, our attention turned to the flying route and weather conditions. The bus did not move for more than an hour. Suddenly an American beside me motioned me to look outside of the window, there I saw father was standing still at the same spot, his slender body, wearing a long gown, the hair on his forehead graying already. Seeing his worried expressions, tears I had held back all morning erupted all at once.

In the seventeen years from 1928 till 1945, father and I were constantly together, those years I grew from childhood to maturity. In the old days, people used to say sons and daughters were indebted to the parents for their love and care. Today people do not say the same any more, but I think the ethics of this relation should be eternal.

II
 

       In early 1946 I enrolled at the University of Chicago as a graduate student. Choosing the University of Chicago was not because it was father’s Alma Mata, but was for Professor Fermi whom I had high esteem for many years[10]. At the time, Chicago was foremost in physics, chemistry and mathematics. I was in residence there for three and a half years, the first two and a half years as a graduate student and the last year as an instructor after I obtained my doctor’s degree. Father, of course, was much delighted at my good performance at Chicago and even more about my projected visit to the Princeton Institute of Advanced Studies. However, he was not mostly concerned about these at that time, but rather about my marriage problem. In 1949 Professor Wu Dayou told me Dr. Hu Shi wanted me to go to see him. I had seen Dr. Hu once or twice in Peiping when I was small and could not figure out how he in New York would think of me after all these years. Dr. Hu was very polite after seeing me and said some words of commendation about my studies. Then he mentioned the fact that before he left China father asked him to help me find a girl friend. Today I still remember Dr. Hu saying humorously: “Fellows of your generation are much more capable than us, who would need my help!”

      On August 26, 1950 Tu Zhihli and I were married in Princeton. Our acquaintance was really not due to the help from Dr. Hu or other friends of father’s, but rather because Zhihli was in the fifth year class of the Southwest Associated University High School which I taught from 1944 to 1945. We were not friendly then, but by a stroke of fate, we met later at the only Chinese restaurant in Princeton. In the 1950’s, Dr. Hu often came to Princeton to visit the

G    Library and had visited us many times. The first time he came he said: “Just as I expected, you found your self a beautiful and capable wife yourself.”

       Father was particularly interested in the first paper I published since coming to the US in 1947 (?) and my doctor’s degree dissertation of the following year, since these were all closely related to the group theory. In January 1957, Dr. Wu Jianxiong proved by experiment the theory of non-conservation of parity. I called father by phone and told him of the news. Non-conservation of parity is related to symmetry, and thus related to group theory. Father was of course very happy about this. He was not in good health then (in 1955, due to long time diabetes and other infections he was not able to absorb insulin, the doctors almost gave up hope, fortunately he later overcame the infections, but he was very weak at this time), this good news gave him consolation.

       In 1957, I went with Zhihli and Kuangnuo, our only child (6 year old) then, to Geneva. I wrote to father asking him to come to Geneva to meet us. After getting permission from the United Front authority, he in his ailing condition, traveled from Beijing, via Moscow and Prague, and arrived in Geneva in early July. There he went to the hospital immediately and stayed for several days. Then he was allowed to go home but having to check his blood sugar everyday and take injections of insulin. That summer we rented a house on Rue de Vermont. Every morning Kuangnuo watched with great interest while grandfather made blood tests by an alcohol burner. When I woke up he would come rushing and say: “It is not good today, it is brown,” or “It is good today, it is blue.” After a few weeks, father had recovered enough for going to the park with the grandson. They were delighted in finding a “secret path.” I felt great satisfaction each time when I saw the old and the young getting ready to go out, father combing his hair before the mirror and Kuangnuo energetically opening the door.

       Father explained many news things about New China. He was respectful toward Chairman Mao and appreciated greatly Mao’s poems.

       One day he wrote two lines for Zhili and I: Do not forget the parental love at each meal, be thankful to the country for your life. Young people of today may think these lines too much tinted by imperialistic ideology. However, I think though the teachings in the imperial ages do have many undesirable elements, there are still many that have long-lasting value.

       In the summers of 1960 and 1962, father and mother came to Geneva twice to see Zhili and me, and our second son Guangyu. My second brother Chen Ping was also there. We were all very excited in the first two days of meeting, telling about things happened to ourselves, other family members and friends. After that we calmed down and were able to enjoy everything in Switzerland.

       Father came to Geneva three times and seemed to have a mission, especially the last two times, that is, to persuade me to return to China. This must evidently have come from clear or indirect hint from the United Front authority, but it was also deep down his own wish. However, he saw the contradiction, he had been nurturing this hope on the one hand, and on the other he wanted me to stay in the US and be in a better position in my academic pursuit.

       The three meetings with father and mother in Geneva left strong impression on me. Conditions in China were very little known in the United States in those years. I got to know father and mother’s attitude toward new China in the three meetings. In 1962 when we were living on Route de Florissant, father said one night new China really made the Chinese people stand on their own feet: Before, they could not make a needle and now they produce automobiles and aircraft (the atomic bomb had not been detonated then, father did not know the development was already in progress); there used to be floods and draughts, causing the death of hundreds of thousands of people, today these have been controlled; before, there were so many illiterates and now all youngsters can go to school, at least in the cities. But mother cut in and said: “Don’t you say just these. I had to get up very early, standing in line for three hours, just to buy some bean curd, and in the end I got only two broken pieces. What good is it?” Father was enraged and said she only gave wrong impressions to the son, and went out slamming the door.

       I knew both of them were talking the truth and the two sides were really not conflicting. The birth of a nation is like the birth of a baby, there are bound to be many difficulties and many pains.

III
       In the summer of 1971 I came back to my motherland after an absence of 26 years. I took the Air France plane and came by way of Burma. Upon reaching Yunnan Province, the pilot announced; “We have entered the skies of China!” The excitement in me was beyond description.
       I arrived in Shanghai at dusk. Mother and my brothers and sister were all at the airport. We went to see father at the Huashan Hospital. Father had been lying in for half a year already. Last time I saw him was in 1964 in Hong Kong, he was then 68 years old and seemed quite healthy. In the six and half years he was tormented by being investigated and looked much older and thinner. Now he could not stand up on his own, but he was evidently happy seeing me.

       In the summer of 1972, I came back for a second visit. Father was still in the hospital and became even weaker. On May 12 the next year he passed away, at the age of 77. On May 15 a memorial service was held for him in Shanghai. I said the following in remembrance of him[11]:

       Father’s health has been deteriorating these two years. He sensed this himself and had been greatly concerned about the thoughts and actions of us. In 1971 and 1972 when I came to Shanghai to see him he talked a great deal. In essence he wanted me to look ahead and be lucid about the trend of historical developments. This moral left great influence on me.

       Father passed away on May 12, 1973. In his life span of 77 years, history experienced drastic changes. A letter from one of his schoolmates and colleagues arrived yesterday: “When we were young, we longed for a prosperous new China. In the twenty years after Liberation, under the guidance of Chairman Mao and the Chinese Communist Party, the new China we had envisioned in our youth has come into reality”. I think the great historical event of the realization of new China and its importance to the future of the world were just what father wanted us to see clearly.                                                                                       

Before I was 6 years old, we lived in Hefei, Anhui in one large family. New couplets would be placed on the posts in the front parlor at the traditional New Year. The upper verse was: Honesty and Tolerance, Heritage in the Family, the lower verse was: Poems and Books, Tradition for Generations. Father indeed acted according to the two words honesty and tolerance. Also he liked the word chun (meaning purity) in his other name Yang Kechun, and also advocated xin (trustworthy) and yi (righteousness) practiced among friends. After father passed away, my classmate and close friend Hsiung Ping Ming wrote to console me in saying although father had passed away, his blood is still flowing in my body. Indeed, there is still father’s blood flowing in my veins, it is the blood of Chinese culture.

I became naturalized as an American in the spring of 1964. Nearly 20 years later I wrote in a dissertation:

I had already lived in the United States for 19 years, from 1945 to 1964, that covered most part of my mature life. However, the decision of becoming an American citizen was not one easy to make. I trust the many immigrants from various countries all have the same problem. To a person brought up in the traditional Chinese cultural background this was particularly difficult. On the one hand, there had not been the concept of migrating to a foreign country for a longer period of time in the Chinese cultural tradition. One the other hand, China did have an illustrious civilization in the past. However, in the mind of every Chinese there is deeply branded the humiliation and exploitation by outside powers for more than 100 years in the past. It is difficult for any Chinese to forget this history of more than 100 years.

My father, before he passed away in 1973, had been a university professor in Peiping and Shanghai. He was awarded a doctor’s degree by the University of Chicago and had widely traveled. But I know, till the very end, deep in the corner of his heart he had not forgiven me for relinquishing my Chinese citizenship[12].

IV
              A life’s longing soul lingers on the yellow soil,

              Oh, mild rains of late spring moisten the redbud flowers.

                                                                                           By Cai Jingping[13]

       I was fortunate enough to be present at the ceremony celebrating the returning of Hong Kong to China at the Hong Kong Conference and Exhibition Center in the early hours of July 1 of 1997. Seeing the national flag of the People’s Republic arise amidst the playing of the national anthem “Arise, People Refusing to be Slaves”, I immediately reflected if only father had witnessed this historical occasion symbolizing the rejuvenation of the Chinese people, he  would have been more excited than I. He was born in 1896 (101 years ago) and had experienced the years of the Maguan Treaty and Gengzi Reparation. The motherland then was broken and poor, humiliated by foreign powers, and was practically divided into colonies. Chinese intellectuals of his generation, witnessed the imperious acts of foreigners in the concessions, endured through the Twenty-one Article Treaty, the Massacre of May 30, the September 18 Incident and the Nanjing Massacre. And they were discriminated against even after they had gone abroad. How pressing had they wanted to see the day the motherland would become strong and prosperous, the British Empire lower its flag and withdraw its troops, and the Chinese national flag proudly announce to the world: This is Chinese territory. This day, July 1, is the day they had longed to see all their lives.

       Father was optimistic all along about the coming of this day. But until he passed away in 1973, he could not have thought of his son that would have the privilege of participating this historical event. Otherwise, he would have altered the famous verse by Lu Fangweng as:

              The cheerful day when the shame of the motherland cleansed will be,

              In the family ritual worship, my son, forget not to tell me.

（梅祖彦译自《永远的清华园》，北京出版社, 2000. 4. 148-162.）