Monday, 20 May

Yang Gongda came to talk about my affairs. He urged me to make preparations first. He said it was only a matter of time before I would be taking up actual work. He said that three important people in the judicial circle, Xie Guansheng, Xie Yingzhou and Zhao Shen, did not cooperate alongside them and that the highest authority was unhappy with them. He also told me what happened about Zhu Jiahua being misunderstood. (In Nanjing, Guangzhou at the time Mainland was still not taken by CCP.) Gongda advised that it was unnecessary for me to buy a house. The rent of the house at Jinhua Road is just NTD3,000, so the price is quite fair. The money he has in private is being used as a capital loan by his friend.  This way he makes as much as four per cent in monthly interest. Therefore, if one had six or seven thousand US dollars, which is worth in New Taiwan dollars, 250,000 and used it as loan capital, one could make eight to nine thousand dollars a month, which is enough to sustain domestic expenditure. So there is no need to buy a house. Also he thought that I must take up actual work in the near future, and at that time I would probably get a house, which is a further reason I need not buy now. I asked him to stay for lunch. Afterwards he telephoned to ask his friend, Gao Shaoqiu, to come. (The owner of China United Car Co. He had entertained even Mr. Ju Zheng and so on.) I went with Gao to the Xinxiuge Hotel at No.91, Wenquan Road, Beitou. (It is newly-opened, and quite clean.) The hotel also employed several accompanying ladies for taking baths. (Among them, Mingxue and Xiufeng of 448 were okay. No wonder they had been (8) praised by Victor Hoo Chi-tsai.)

At 5:30 I returned to the Sanyezhuang hostel, where Gongda lives. Chen Rongsi (陳榮禩)(Character : Zhonghang) (Chairman of the Seamen’s Union) also came. I went with them to a Shanxi restaurant on Zhongzheng Road for dinner. The food was quite good and it was not expensive either. I returned to House of Freedom by 10:30 p.m.

8] Or “it was”.