The Story of Lee-Po Cheng's (C32) Father 鄭汝順

[2] Breaking into the middle class. In吳松 my father finally got a chance to go to school --- a school ran by the railroad company. After finishing the elementary school, he was expected to go to the local factory to work (as most of his classmates). But he had a strong desire to continue his education. It was extremely fortunate that one of his uncles (one who was also a poor railroad worker but still single) came forward with the tuition that allowed him to attend two years of junior high school at the county seat. Then came another decisive change: at the end of his eighth grade, a classmate told him that one of his relatives ran a school in Shanghai, training wireless operators with guarantied employment for the top three students. My father did graduate top of this training school and got a job as an operator in the town of 宜昌 downstream from the Three Gorges of the Yangtze River. That was in 1931. His starting pay was ten times larger than his father’s watchman salary.

[3] The ups and downs of a businessman. In later years he managed to get transferred back as a wireless operator in Shanghai, where he met my mother. Again this was a crucial turn of events in his life. My mother had an extraordinary life story of her own and possessed even broader outlook in life. My sister 鄭麗波 (Pui Ching class 1959) and I came along. The male members of the family were given names according to certain pattern. In my case the middle character was fixed to be “大”. Reflecting my father’s lifelong regret that he did not have the opportunity for more extensive schooling, I was given the third character “培” --- “Cheng with a big education”. Yes, I don’t know what we have achieved; but my sister and I did indeed get a whole bunch of degrees. I was born a couple of weeks before Pearl Harbor --- which had a dramatic effect on our family. The Japanese entered the French concession part of the city and my father was soon arrested by the Japanese gendarmeries because he was working as an underground radio operator. Although he was spared of serious torture, it definitely had left psychological scars. At the least, he had lost his means of livelihood. As my father would tell us, once again a savior came to his rescue (this time, the brother of one of his operator school classmates) who offered him a job in a commercial firm. This time my father metamorphosed into a businessman. His import/export business brought our family to 青島, where I attended my elementary school before moving back to Shanghai for junior-high in mid 1950s. My father did make a fortune in the 1940s, but like so many others, lost it again after the regime change of 1949. My parents did manage to get to Hong Kong in the early 50’s. They were certainly much better off than most refugees because his business partners have already established themselves in Hong Kong. My sister and I came in late 1956. While鄭麗波got into Pui Ching right away, I had to wait for the fall semester of 1957 to enter the 9th grade. [I was not a particularly good student prior to the Pui Ching days --- obviously not because Pui Ching was “easy”, but because, after being bored-stiff back at home learning English for eight months, I was truly hungry for school when I got to Pui Ching.] My father and his Shanghai business friends had undertaken a number of business enterprises: factories in textile, knitting wears, wigs etc. I would say that none of these were terribly successful in terms of earning a significant return. But they provided the livelihood of quite few families.

[4] The truly successful enterprise of his life was started when he was over 60. As a lesson to all of us in our 60’s, the one enterprise of his life that turned successful was running a textile company in Indonesia where he went when he was already 62 years old. My father was involved in starting a (spinning) textile factory in HK, the Eastern Cotton Mills Ltd. As I mentioned above, it never made much money. In the twenty year history (from mid 50s to mid 70s) it never paid out a dividend for its investors. [As so often in HK, what eventually earned the investors some return was the value of the land which the factory sat on.] In the early 70s, the question came up as what to do with the aging machineries. It was then proposed to ship them to Indonesia and my father was asked to lead this enterprise (since he had spent several years there attempting to start an enamel factory in the 50s.) But this final venture (P.T. Eratex Djaya Ltd.) went on from success to success (because of booming export to US and Europe) until he retired in 1993 when he was 83.

[5] A self-made man whose life also mirrored the great change of modern China. This extraordinary life of my father no doubt reflects the his quality as a person: foremost, it was his absolute integrity in his relation with all sorts of people he encountered in his life, and his enterprising spirit, always interested in learning new ideas and new skills, especially language skills. In his later years he could speak fluent English and Indonesian. Nevertheless, his life also reflects the historical tide of change that has taken place in China as it opens to the wider world. The establishment of treaty ports (yes, they were unequal treaties, but they did lay the foundations of these important cities for us), rail roads, modern schools, and all sorts of trades and exchanges … all had a direct impact on my father’s life. His final success in Indonesia, while resulting from the enterprising energy of the whole company, is also a reflection of the rising economical tide from the entire Far East. His was one of the boats that had risen with the tide. Thus, through his personal quality and circumstantial chances he had led a remarkable life --- from a peasant in a poor village in northern China to become a citizen of the world (in his later years he had traveled and lived in several different countries). And, I suppose in a very symbolic way, this world citizenry was also expressed in his wish (and its realization) in being buried near my sister’s home in Maryland (so that we children and grandchildren can visit my parents gravesite more conveniently). Yes, it really was quite a journey.

I am writing all this with the thought that while the same kind experience had touched on all of us one way or another, this sort of change had taken place more dramatically in our parents generation.