UNDERSTANDING CHINESE HISTORY CAN FEEL LIKE TRYING to drink while you’re drowning, and the excess of perspectives, room for debate, and changing understandings often resign the amateur historian to, instead of verifying the truth, making sure information is not untrue. When it came to my family history, I had no choice but to take my relatives’ words for it, though I attempted to triangulate what they told me as much as possible. With regards to Chinese history, particularly local histories, my first encounter with it was often in conversation, after which I would look up whether or not what I was told was, indeed, the case—a process limited by the number of available English-language sources. Though I try to present as broad a historical context as possible, it’s up to the reader to decide what and how much to believe, just as I had to. Any inaccuracies are unintentional.
Much as the blurring of fact and mythology is part of Chinese history, so too was the case for my family’s history, especially the dialogue that I recount verbatim from relatives. Since so few primary sources from my great-great-grandfather’s, great-grandfather’s, or even grandmother’s generation survived, I was left to trust the recollection of family members in reconstructing dialogue for those scenes.
Certain background sources were not as fraught and were thus invaluable. For Chinese history in general, I leaned heavily on Jonathan Spence’s The Search for Modern China. Material on the Palace Museum’s history came from Bruce Doar’s research. The background on the construction of the Ginling College campus came from Jeffrey W. Cody’s article “Striking a Harmonious Chord: Foreign Missionaries and Chinese-style Buildings, 1911–1949.” Essays by Pankaj Mishra and Ian Johnson provided information about the Great Leap Forward. Other sources I consulted include Jin Feng’s The Making of a Family Saga: Ginling College and Colossus Unsung by Bob Molloy.