Thursday, 5 January

Twenty-third day of the eleventh lunar month

Cold, fine

Brother-in-law Long Dashan sent me the combined issue of Vol.3 of the bi-monthly magazine, Refeng, which was published recently in Hong Kong. I consider myself to be a sojourner overseas, but the magazine offers much more information than I do when telling others about the past. Inside the bi-monthly there are articles which criticize me for being at fault. I certainly admit the faults were mine.

Last week Zhuohui wrote to me saying that sister Ying had passed away. Originally, I wanted to send her husband, Bochou, condolence money for the funeral. But as I was not sure if he had moved to another address, I wrote to Zhuohui first to find out.  I suddenly recalled, though, that in our Chinese custom for marriage and death, gifts for these occasions cannot be sent at a later date. Therefore, I only sent my condolences by letter to Bochou.

L’Information reported news from a correspondent for the Daily Mail of Macao, saying that Chiang Ching-kuo intended to have peace talks with the Chinese communists, but that his father had objected. Such action of Chiang Ching-kuo is supported by many important party and military people. The relevant channels of the Chinese communists deny it, but they noted that only some moderate professors had tried to test the attitude of the Chinese communists. I do not really believe this. Perhaps this has been made up by Taipei to irritate Washington. If this is the case, it would be really very foolish to do so.