[originaltext]Q: I was told you have a hard, rich and colorful life and your li

Q: I was told you have a hard, rich and colorful life and your life is legendary, could you please tell us something about it?
A: Because my father died early and my 6 brothers and sisters also died early, I was under the special care of my mother who worked hard in the educational circle and was so dear to me that I should say that without her painstaking care I really could not survive till now. I’ll never forget her in my whole life. My father’s elder brother helped me a lot too. Due to the stringency or financial difficulties of the family, there’s no way out but to leave my home when very young to temper myself and to solve my livelihood problems. I might say that I had taken up all kinds of trade. I moved from Beijing to Shanghai in 1933 and left Shanghai for Hong, kong in 1938. While I was in Shanghai and Hong, kong, I joined the national salvation movement. Later on in 1940 with meagre savings I travelled from Hongkong to Vietnam by boat and overland from Hanoi to Kunming by a dilapidated train for an entrance examination to the most famous National Southwest Associated University. (It was an integrated or united university of three most prestigious universities, the Peking University and Tsinghua University in Peking and Nankai University in Tianjin which were forced to move to. Kunming due to Japan s invasion of China in 1937. ) There I took part in progressive student movement and drama performance activities for propagating the War of Resistance Against Japan. After graduation from the university, I joined the army in 1944, flew over the Himalaya Mountains by an American military transport plane called C-47 and was assigned to duty in India and later on in Burma Front at the Forward Echelon of General Stilwell’s Headquarters as an interpreter, a translator and a liaison officer between Chinese and U. S. troops in their common fight against the cruel and desperate Japanese in the remote and uninhabited jungle for more than 17 months. I traversed the hard way a greater part of Burma during that period. After V. J. day of 1945, I came back to Shanghai. At first I taught in a juhior college and not long afterwards, I became an executive of a company and visited many places in the world including South Korea and many other countries of Europe, Middle East and Southeast Asia, sometimes part work part study, such as a work-study student in Sorbonne. I travelled extensively. But soon after the liberation, I came home in response to Premier Zhou’s call at the end of 1950.
In the beginning, as the chief executive, I took pains in reestablishing The Fifties Publishing House with my old friend Jin Chang You from 1950-1956 which was later amalgamated into The Time Publishing House and subsequently The Commercial Press where I worked since then. I was branded as an American special agent soon after the Great Cultural Revolution started. In 1969, three years after, I lost my left leg due to the abnormal situation ruling at that period, but all the same I had to go to the "May-Seventh Cadre School in Xiannin, Hubei Province under the order of Lin Biao. There I had to use my remaining right leg to operate the sewing machine to mend worn clothes for other downcast cadres. After rehabilitation I returned to The Commercial Press to resume my old job and started the magazine. By the way, I should say to the advisers, members of the editorial board, writers, translators and my dear readers of The Word of English many thanks for their warm support from 1981 till now.