It was unofficial Civil War and Sion-Japanese War time in China, and the Chinese immigration officer was very surprised. Why was this American born Chinese, “ABC” young woman, in her twenties, coming to China? She did not look adventurous at all, and she did not speak any Chinese. So, he asked her, in English, “why are you here?” To which she replied, “I guess I’m here to seek my fame and fortune!”

当时的中国正处于长期的战乱（有内战也有中日之战）之中，在见到我母亲时，中国的移民官非常惊讶：为什么这个在美国出生的二十多岁的“中国人”，ABC（American Born Chinese） 美国出生的女子，这时来到中国?她看起来一点也不象爱冒险的人，还不会说中文。于是，他用英语问她:“你为什么来这里?”她回答说:“我想我来这里是为寻找我的名望和财富吧。”

I would not have believed this conversation, except I heard mother actually describe it to a friend. Normally, she didn’t talk about her past to us children, and certainly never acted ambitious to “seek fame and fortune.” A timid woman, who however, amazingly, traveled alone to China, during a turbulent time in history. Throughout her schooling in Seattle, at Roosevelt High School and the University of Washington, she was always considered very shy, so this decision was, I’m sure, shocking to most people.

如果不是我亲自听到妈妈向朋友描述的话，我是不会相信这个对话的。正常情况下，她不会向我们这些孩子们谈起她的过去，当然也从来没有表现出野心勃勃的“追名逐利”。然而，她这样一个小胆的女人，令人惊讶地独自一人在一个动荡的历史时期来到了中国。她在西雅图的罗斯福高中和华盛顿大学上学期间，一直被认为非常内向腼腆，所以我相信，她当时的这个决定一定让大多数人感到震惊。

When she was growing up in Seattle, it was thought that there were only about 10 Chinese families in the town, so she grew up basically as an American. She never learned Chinese, except for some conversational pidgin Swatow, since her parents spoke the Swatow language (a Southeast China coastal language) at home. Her father had been invited, or “called,” by the first Chinese church in Seattle, USA (Chinese Baptist Church), to migrate from their hometown of Swatow, or Shantou, to be one of their first pastors.

她所生长的西雅图，当时的镇上只有大约10个左右的中国家庭，所以她基本上是一个美国人。她从来没有学过中文，除了在谈话中说一些洋泾浜的汕头语，因为她的父母在家里说的是汕头语（一种中国东南沿海的方言)。她的父亲是受美国西雅图第一华人教会(华人浸信会)的邀请或“呼召”，从汕头迁来的，成为他们的首批牧师之一。

Now this English speaking “ABC” girl was in China. Ostensibly she was joining her older sister, Florence, in Yunnan province, in western China. Florence was a University of Michigan medical graduate and had gone to serve in China as medical missionary. Unfortunately, after mom’s arrival in Yunnan, her inability to learn Chinese frustrated her, and soon she retreated to Hong Kong, then a British colony, where English was much more prevalent.

现在这个说英语的“ABC”（美国出生的）女孩来到了中国。表面上的理由，她是来和在中国西部云南省的姐姐弗洛伦斯(Florence)团聚的。弗洛伦斯毕业于密歇根大学医学院，曾到中国医疗宣道。可惜的是，在妈妈到达云南后，学习中文的努力让她觉得沮丧，很快她就知难而退到了香港。香港当时是英国的殖民地，英语在那里更为普遍。

In Hong Kong, she worked with an English newspaper company, and taught English in an English middle school (King’s College). She also met my father, providentially, at Queen Mary Hospital where dad was a young surgeon. See Reggietales.org “If It Were Not for My Hemorrhoids.” She had a small circle of American expatriate friends, ABC women who had apparently really come to Asia to “seek fame and fortune!” I never got to know this group too well, but I imagine they also had many culture shock stories in adapting to life in Asia.

在香港，她在一家英文报纸工作，并在一所英文中学(英王学院)教英文。天意使然，她在玛丽医院邂逅了我的父亲。当时，父亲是一名年轻的外科医生（请参见Reggietales.org的“如果不是我的痔疮”）。她有一个美国侨民朋友的小圈子，这些同样是 ABC（美国出生的） 的女性显然是真正来亚洲“追求名望和财富!”。我对这个群体并没有太多了解，但我想她们在适应亚洲生活时也同样会有很多文化冲突的故事。

Of course, since I had an American born mother who spoke English at home, I had a distinct language advantage when I went to British schools for primary and secondary education. This did not endear me to my classmates. Some of them remember to this day, when the teacher would correct their English by referring them to “listen to how Reginald says this sentence!” One good way to “not make friends and influence people.” Having an English literature major background, mother was quite a stickler for proper English and its pronunciation, and likely as a consequence, I’ve always done fairly well with the language.

当然，由于我母亲在美国出生，在家里说英语，所以我在英国学校上小学和中学时就有了明显的语言优势。这并没有使我受到同学们的喜爱。他们中的一些人至今还记得，老师在纠正他们的英语时，会对他们说:“听听Reginald( 我的英文名字) 是怎么说这句话的!”。这样就让当时的我走到《如何交友及影响他人》一书的反面，给一些同学留下一个不太好的印象。因为英文文学的专业背景，所以我妈妈非常坚持正确的英语和发音，可能正因如此，我的英语一直都还不错。

Mother liked to scoff at British English differences from American English. She poked fun at British pronunciation of schedule as shedule, wondering why they did not pronounce school as shool. And she joked about tomahto instead of tomayto, colour instead of color. To me it was all in good fun, and helped me to understand the complexities and illogic of language. Of course, my British or British trained teachers scoffed even more about “uncouth Americanisms.” There were also lots of rather snide remarks about America in general by the teachers, which made me cringe inside, as if mom and her heritage were being attacked. No matter what their ethnicities, the “cultural motherland” of the teachers seemed to be the British Isles, and they were obviously trying to “convert” the school-kids also!

母亲喜欢调侃英国英语和美国英语的不同。她笑英国人把schedule发音为shedule，很想知道为什么他们不把school发音为shool。她还开玩笑说tomahto应该是tomayto，colour应该是color。对我来说，这一切都很好玩，它帮助我理解了语言的复杂性和非逻辑性。当然，我的英国老师或在英国受过教育的老师们更加嘲笑“粗鲁的美国语”。还有很多老师对美国的嘲讽，这让我心里很难过，好像妈妈和她的传统受到了攻击。无论他们是什么民族，老师们的“文化祖国”似乎是不列颠群岛，他们显然也在试图“改变”学生们!

In retrospect, even as I was growing up in Asia, I was very grateful to mother for gently brainwashing me about everything American. In particular, she brought me every week to the US Information Service, USIS, which had lots of great books about America, especially for children. I read all about the great heroes of American history and culture, including often their faith and relationship to God, at a time when this was not censored, or considered “politically incorrect.” American government and secular censorship of God in history and literature only occurred later, and I was fortunately spared their revisionist philosophy. Even the USIS global program unfortunately was abolished in 1999, removing even this outpost for more traditional American values.

回想起来，即使我是在亚洲长大的，我还是非常感激母亲温柔地给我洗脑，把美国的一切都讲给我听。特别是，她每周带我去美国信息服务机构USIS，那里有很多关于美国的好书，尤其是儿童读物。我读了所有关于美国历史和文化中的伟大英雄的书，包括他们的信仰和与上帝的关系，在那时候这些书还没有被审查，或者被认为“政治不正确”。美国政府和世俗对上帝在历史和文学上的审查是后来才发生的，而我好在是逃脱了他们的修正主义哲学。不幸的是，美国的USIS全球项目在1999年被废除了，更传统的美国价值观甚至失去了这个前哨站。

So, I grew up with a conservative view of American history and literature from my mother’s subtle influences, which nurtured in me a great respect and admiration for America, very different from what we often hear today in rather liberal modern America. Cowboy and war stories and movies then were framed with a strong moral basis of right and wrong, instilling in me a strong sense of morality and virtue even from the general culture. I vividly remember that even with severe violence in any story, the virtues of kindness and reason would ultimately win. I sensed instinctively that the stories often had a strong basic biblical framework, again quite different from today.

所以，在我母亲潜移默化的影响下，我成长在一个对美国历史和文学持保守观点的环境中，这也培养了我对美国的尊敬和钦佩，这与我们今天所听到的自由主义的现代美国大相径庭。当时的牛仔和战争故事和电影都有一个强烈的是非道德基础，给我灌输了一种强烈的道德感，这种道德感甚至来自于一般文化。我清楚地记得，即使在任何故事中出现了严重的暴力，善良和理性的美德最终还是会获胜。我本能地感觉到，这些故事通常都有一个牢固的、基本的圣经框架，这与今天的一些故事有很大的不同。

My mother was a librarian for part of her life, and she really tried to protect books. She did not allow me to underline any books even though they were mine! Even my Bible. After many protests, she finally let me do it, and thereafter I furiously underlined the Bible, my books, newspapers, magazines, just everything! And to this day, I cannot borrow a library book, because my instincts are instantly to underline it (horrors!). However, for my own books, which are many, I have great “skills” in underlining and highlighting, in many colors, with many annotations, so that any book I am reading soon is filled with special contributions! Unfortunately they are not necessarily neat, since I might be writing at different angles, including from bed. But, when you get my old books you get me also!

我母亲一生中有一段时间是图书管理员，她真地在努力保护书籍。即使是我自己的书，她也不允许我在书上划线!包括我的圣经。经过多次抗争之后，她终于屈服了。从那以后，我好像报复性地在《圣经》、我的书、报纸、杂志，几乎所有的东西上画线!直到今天，我还不能从图书馆借到书，因为我的本能会立即在书下面划线(太可怕了!)。然而，对于我自己的书，我有很好的“技巧”用不同颜色的下划线和高亮，有很多注解，所以我对即将阅读的任何一本书都充满了特别的贡献!不幸的是，它们不一定整洁，因为我可能在不同的场景“创作”，包括在床上。但是，当你得到我的旧书时，你也基本得到我在书上的贡献，了解了我这个人!

My strange (to me) mother didn’t like to talk, aggravated later probably by hearing problems, and she loved to sit in a corner and read, and read. I barely heard a word from her all day long. But when she wrote, she composed very elegant letters, and if you just read her letters, she was really very charming, quite different from meeting and talking in person! So later on in life, when we were separated by oceans, her correspondence was really kind of fun. Ironically, I then had a lot more conversations with her than in the past. Fortunately, I have kept her letters, which are quite delightful, like a record of history. I guess her style of communication was through letters, and not oral conversations! Maybe my own love of writing comes unconsciously from her?

对我来说有点奇怪的母亲不喜欢说话，她喜欢坐在角落里看书，看书。一整天我几乎都听不到她说一个字。但是她写的信非常优雅。如果你读她的信，你会发现她真的很有魅力，不同于面对面交谈时的样子!所以在后来的生活中，当我们远隔重洋时，她的通信真的给我很多的生趣。讽刺的是，我和她的对话比以前也多了很多。好在，我保存着她写给我的信，这些信很令人愉快，就像一份历史记录。我猜她喜欢的沟通方式是通过信件，而不是口头交谈!也许我对写作的热爱是无意识地来自于她吧?

Another influence that probably unconsciously came into my life was mom’s clipping of newspapers. She did that as part of work in the Hong Kong newspaper company, during the Sino-Japanese War, which generated lots of war news to clip. “Cut and paste” in its original form. She resumed that practice when she moved from Hong Kong to join us in Cincinnati in her old age. It was great for my busy medical life, to get regular clippings of interesting articles from her, without my having to read the entire newspaper.

另一个可能无意识地进入我生活的影响是妈妈的剪报。这是她在香港报业公司工作的一部分，在中日战争期间，产生了大量的战争新闻剪辑。是“剪切和粘贴”的原始形式。当她晚年从香港搬到辛辛那提的家和我们同住后，她又重新开始了她的这个习惯性的工作。 这对我繁忙的医生生活很有好处，我可以定期从她那里得到有趣的文章剪报，而不需要读整份报纸。

Further, I started the habit myself of clipping or tearing articles from magazines, and “filing them” usually inside my favorite books, pasting them into scrap books, or later scanning them into emails. And if you have my old books, you might also have these clips inserted inside. A bonus from my mother.

此外，我自己也养成了从杂志上剪下或撕下文章的习惯，通常把它们“归档”在我最喜欢的书里，粘贴到剪贴簿里，或者稍后扫描它们到电子邮件里。如果你有我的旧书，你也可能会在里面看到这些剪辑。这都是妈妈给我的财富。

In mother’s old age, her hearing became really impaired, but she was still reading well, so we came up with a great idea to write to her on a writing tablet or a daily diary notebook. The best part is that now I have some record of what we wrote to her every day. Funny how we learn to communicate in different ways at different life stages.

在母亲年老的时候，她的听力已经严重受损，但她的阅读能力仍然很好，所以我们想出了一个好主意，可以在写字板或日记本上给她写信。最棒的是，现在我还有一些我们每天写给她的记录。有趣的是，我们在不同的人生阶段学会了用不同的方式交流。

My wife Esther was really anxious to make sure mother knew the Lord personally before she passed on, since she was rather quiet and private about that. So, one day when mom’s health was failing, Esther wrote on a paper notebook pad about confirming her faith, and was really happy to see mom affirm that, especially as she passed on not long afterwards. In her own special way of communication.

我的妻子温粹英非常希望母亲能在去世前确认她是信主的，因为她对这件事始终相当沉默和保密。所以，当妈妈的健康每况愈下时，有一天，我太太在一个纸本子上问询母亲对上帝的信仰，并且很高兴地得到了妈妈坚定的确认。尤其是不久之后，她就去世了。她一直也在用自己独特的方式与上帝交流吧！

Many people are surprised when they hear that I am quietly writing and writing, and that I don’t seem to mind not being super-energetic and world traveling, as I appeared to be doing before this. Actually, I’m really a quiet person at heart, and I would rather spend all day reading if I could. This new phase of life is actually a reversion to my original me! A version probably of my enigmatic mother, you could even say. I tend to dream that, in heaven I will have plenty of time to read and write extensively, quietly, by a brook under a tree, and please don’t bother me.

很多人都很惊讶，当他们听到我总是在安静地写作，写作。不似那个精力充沛的要周游世界的人，那个曾经的我。其实，我是一个内心安静的人，如果可以的话，我宁愿整天读书。这个新的生活阶段，其实是对我原来的自我的回归!你甚至可以说是我神秘的母亲的一个翻版。我常常梦想，在天堂里，我会有足够的时间，静静地，在树下、在溪边，广泛地阅读，不倦地写作，无人叨扰。