The Lius of Shanghai

472 Pages·2013·2.744 MB·English

by  Sherman Cochran, Andrew Hsieh

lius
the of
shanghai
sherman cochran & andrew hsieh
THE LIUS OF SHANGHAI

THE LIUS
OF SHANGHAI
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SHERMAN COCHRAN
ANDREW HSIEH
HARVARD UNIVERSITY PRESS
Cambridge, Massachusetts
London, En gland
2013
Copyright © 2013 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
Library of Congress Cataloging- in- Publication Data
Cochran, Sherman, 1940–
The Lius of Shanghai / Sherman Cochran and Andrew Hsieh.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978- 0-6 74-0 7259-6 (alk. paper)
1. Family- owned business enterprises—C hina—History—20th century.
2. Liu family. I. Xie, Zhengguang. II. Title.
HD62.25.C63 2013
338.092'251132—dc23 2012039399
For Macu and Ming

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Contents
Preface ix
Introduction: Family Dynamics under Patriarchy 1
I PLANNING A BUSINESS DYNASTY, 1907– 1932
1 Parents Who Dreamed of a Business Dynasty 13
2 Sons Who Tried for Admission to Cambridge 23
3 Sons Who Did Not Want to Become British Citizens 49
II BEHAVING CONTRARY TO THE PLAN, 1932– 1937
4 A Son Who Wanted to Drop Out of Harvard 67
5 A Son Who Was Sick 90
6 A Son Who Proposed Marriage to a Westernized
Woman 116
7 A Daughter Who Spoiled a Marriage Alliance 147
III REACTING TO WAR, 1938– 1945
8 Sons Who Became Leaders in Wart ime 165
9 A Son Who Joined the Communists 185
10 A Son Who Battled Depression 217
11 Mother’s Struggle to Save Her Marriage 237
12 The Family’s Postwar Disunion and Reunion 259
viii Contents
IV ADAPTING TO REVOLUTION, 1946– 1956
13 Father’s Decision to Live in the People’s Republic 279
14 A Daughter Who Forged Family Alliances 298
15 A Son Who Refused to Return to China 325
16 Parents’ Deaths and Children’s Dispersal 344
Conclusion: The Inner History of a Chinese Family 355
Archives and Works Cited 367
Notes 377
Ac know ledg ments 421
Index 425
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Preface
On a cold winter day in 1992, I saw letters in the Liu family’s corre-
spondence for the fi rst time. I was seated in a solid, wooden, straight-
backed chair at the Center for Research on Chinese Business History in
the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences (SASS) when Professor Huang
Hanmin, the director of the Center, delivered the letters to my desk. By
the standards of American archives and libraries, it was not a comfort-
able place. According to China’s policies at the time, public buildings
south of the Yangzi River were not heated in winter, and since Shang-
hai is located on the Yangzi River, it was one of the northernmost cities
wholly lacking in this amenity. But if my personal discomfort initially
distracted me, I became completely focused as soon as I opened the fi rst
box of the Liu family letters and began to read.
Instantly I felt transported into the world of the Liu family. Four
hours later I was startled when Professor Huang pointed out that it was
time for lunch. I had sat through the morning without moving a mus-
cle except to turn the pages of the old and fragile onionskin paper on
which the letters w ere written. At that moment I resolved to write a
book about the Liu family that would somehow allow readers to share
with me what I had experienced on that bitterly cold and utterly ex-
hilarating day.
Why was I immediately drawn into these letters? Admittedly, I
had preexisting reasons for taking an interest in the Center’s holdings
in general and its materials on the Lius in part icu l ar. I had been visiting
SASS regularly for nearly a dec ade (since 1983), and in the early 1990s
I had teamed up with two of SASS’s most distinguished Chinese scholars,