Family History

The following is a brief family history on my dad's side:

1931 in Manchuria was the beginning of the Japanese invasion of China. At the time, my father's grandpa was a physiology professor at the Peking Union Medical College, which still continues it's high and prestigous reputation today. He later immigrated to the US as an exchange scholar and did research at the Rockefellar University in New York. After his hiatus, he returned to Beijing to live with his wife and 8 kids and continue teaching at PUMC. It was 1937 and political tensions were rising as the Japanese were advancing, so my great grandfather urged his family to move south into Canton while he stayed along with his eldest son who was studying at a university in Beijing. On July 7, 1937, my great grandpa left for Beijing by train on the same night as the Luguo Bridge (aka Marco Polo Bridge) incident where the Japanese attacked and marked the beginning of the Second Sino-Japanese War. Multiple battles occured and my great grandpa was caught in the middle of it.

Meanwhile, one of his sons (my grandpa) finished his medical studies, served as an army doctor, and got married to my grandma all within 8 years during the war. Shortly after their marriage, my father was born 3 months before the war was over. After the atom bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the allied victory, they all moved up to Canton and reunited with my great grandpa after 11 years of separation when he crossed the Luguo Bridge. My great grandpa never spoke of what happened at Luguo and how he escaped the battles.

Fast forwarding to 1976, my dad had completed his university studies in the US and as a research fellow at the Sloan Kettering Cancer Institute in New York, which was right across the street from Rockefellar University. One day, he was doing some literature searches in the library that was shared by both universities . He stumbled upon an article published by his grandfather describing the results of his research at Rockefellar University. This was his first tangible connection with his grandfather since 1949. My dad remembers it as the most memorable day he ever spent in any library.