I just finished writing my new book. Its title is The Yin and Yang of the Dragon and the Eagle: Tale of Two Cultures and Two Countries.
This book describes the hardships, challenges, and tragedies faced by the dragons and the eagles as they experience their lives having lived in both China and the U.S. It is based on the real-life experiences of the Tow family intertwining the cultures of China and the U.S., sometimes exhibiting more of one type than the other, and sometimes spontaneously transforming from one type to another, like yin and yang in Taiji.
The book recollects the unrelenting political chaos and turmoil through two decades of war (the Second Sino-Japanese War, World War II, and China’s Civil War), their family tragedy, and their personal experiences of living the lives of dragons and eagles. The book begins with my father’s first experience as a not-yet 15-year-old coming to the U.S. as a merchant’s son to attend high school in Providence, Rhode Island, and then college, first at Brown University in Providence, as a freshman and then the next three years at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Boston.
It then describes my father’s experience after graduating in 1930 at MIT with a Bachelor Degree in Civil Engineering. He then returned to China, and worked in the County Road Department in Guangzhou (also known as Canton), and started his family. All this happened during the turbulent years of the 1930s, including the Second Sino-Japanese War (1931-1945), WWII (1939-1945), and China’s civil war (1927-1949).
It describes the family tragedy that occurred in our family. During those turbulent years of the 1930s, 1940s, and the first half of the 1950s, it describes their family needing to pull up roots multiple times, often losing everything and needing to start from scratch. It describes “no man’s land” which was what Hong Kong was called on Christmas 1941. It describes the friendship between my father and Mr. Harold S. Prescott, (his college freshman dormitory roommate at Brown University) that lasted over half a century, across countries and across oceans.
The Tow family then migrated to the U.S. in October 1955. After moving to the U.S., it describes members of the Tow family on their college education, including the author (Don Tow) living through the Free Speech Movement of 1963 at the University of California at Berkeley, the civil rights movement, the Third World Movement, and the Anti-Vietnam War Movement starting in the decade of the 1960s. This decade resulted in many changes in the psyche of Americans, especially among students on American college campuses, as well as in the American society, as well as in other societies world wide. It expanded their horizon and focus, paying much more attention to the social and economic conditions of their society, as well as the world as a whole. This seismic change also affected our contemporaries. For example, a friend from the University of California at Berkeley after finishing his master degree in engineering in 1970 returned to Hong Kong and initiated a project to start teaching high school courses in a remote part of Hong Kong which at that time did not offer high schools in that remote part of Hong Kong. His effort resulted in several other students joining that effort. This project lasted several years until a public high school was established in that part of Hong Kong. More information on that initiative, as well as what happened after that initiative can be found in Ref. 1.
Starting in the fall of 1970, a global Diao Yu Tai (DYT) Student Movement erupted around the world. Information on this global DYT Student Movement can be found in Ref. 2. This global student movement originated over the territorial dispute on the Diao Yu Islands (or Diao Yu Tai in Chinese and Senkaku Islands in Japanese) that made front page news in newspapers around the globe. This dispute dates back to many years, and about 50 years ago this dispute led to a very widespread global Chinese student movement, known as the Diao Yu Tai or DYT Student Movement. From the very beginning of that global Student Movement, it was recognized that this is not just a minor territorial dispute between two countries, but it had much larger significance involving (1) the revival of Japanese militarism, and (2) American imperialism and collusion with Japan, with the intention to weaken China. This Student Movement started in the fall of 1970 and quickly gained momentum in 1971 and spread around the world in in the following decade. This Movement also resulted in a major shift in the study focus of oversea Chinese students from mostly science and engineering to a much broader focus covering all disciplines with their eyes on the whole world.
The worldwide Diaoyutai Student Movement resulted in a major impact on the minds and thoughts of Chinese college students across the world in the sense that they are much more focused on the problems of the world, not just on engineering and scientific problems limited to their local neighborhoods. As the years pass by, the Movement affected and drastically changed the lives and the livelihood of numerous Chinese students and as well as the adults as these students become adults. One could say that the 1970s resulted in a change in the minds of overseas Chinese, and its impacts are reflected in some the things that will be discussed in the rest of this book.
The book is more than one family’s memoir; it is about the dynamic transformation process of assimilation which all immigrants undergo to one degree or another. In that sense, this book has more general validity and applicability.
We plan to publish this book in both English and Chinese later this year, including self publishing.
References
Ref. 1: The Shaping of the Life of a Young Student at the University of California at Berkeley, in the August 2011 issue of www.dontow.com.
Ref. 2: Diao Yu Tai Student Movement: Recollection 40 Years Later, and 50 years later, in the October 2010 and the September 2020 issues of the website www.dontow.com.
Update on Perspective on US-China Relationship
However, there are also tariffs that the Trump administration will impose on China (and tariffs during his previous term as the U.S. President). As the matter of fact, the Biden administration already has imposed many tariffs (including those from the first President Trump) on China. China has also purchased large amounts of certain agricultural products from countries like Brazil. (See, e.g., Ref. 1) China has also taken certain counter measures, such as forbidding or restricting trade of certain rare earth elements to the U.S. (see, e.g, Ref. 2). Some of these rare earth elements have military and technology applications.
Recently I also just read an article in the Foreign Times (Ref. 3) that “by tying subsidies to technology transfers and local production requirements, Brussels ensures that Chinese companies contribute to the EU’s industrial base rather than merely exporting batteries. This approach mirrors other global trade practices, The US Inflation Reduction Act, for example, ties clean energy subsidies to domestic content. Tariffs, by contrast, have done little to achieve their intended goals. Whether the U. S. will do something similar to Belgium, we will have to wait and see.
As to the U.S.’s heavy tariffs on Chinese made automobiles, especially on those automobiles which plan to meet modern emission restrictions, I don’t see how the U.S. without a change on its current position is going to solve the problem, because it is essentially China who is producing such vehicles. Either the U.S. is not going to meet these emission standards or the U.S. is going to drop such tariffs. We will just have to see how the future will evolve in front of our eyes.
References