The Li Clan

On the eve of Liberation, our Li clan stood on the Huaibei Plain, a family both admired and feared. My great-grandfather belonged to the Huai generation, and he had seven full brothers, each of them renowned in his own right.

My great-granduncle Li Huaihai, the eldest of them, served in Beijing as deputy minister of railways for the Kuomintang. My great-grandfather, Li Huaikuo, was third in line and served as the head of our local township. My sixth great-granduncle, Li Huairen, was a learned man who graduated from Yenching University. As my grandfather often grumbled in his later years, “Sixth Uncle had a head full of knowledge, and a heart full of wickedness!”

My grandfather’s younger sister Yutu was buried alive by Li Huairen and his followers. The injustice done to her still spurs me to speak up on her behalf.

After Liberation, my family was classified as landlords and fell into complete ruin. Li Huairen returned from Taiwan with a great deal of money, and all our relatives and neighbors flocked around him. Only my grandfather, Li Yongdun, remained unmoved.