More than 30 years of painstaking pursuit of family relics - interview with Li Li, author of "White Dove Mulan" and famous Taiwanese writer in the United States

Source: Taiwan Straits Network

The picture shows Li Li telling the story of the martyrDom Yao Mingzhu of Xue Jiemin to primary school students at the Xue Clan Ancestral Hall in Xiaqiao Community, Fengting Town yesterday. Meizhou Daily reporter Cai Hao photographed

According to a report by Meizhou Daily on April 7, this year marks the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Communist Party of China, and this Qingming Festival is particularly special for Li Li, a famous Taiwanese writer in the United States. Qingming remembered the distant future, she came to the hometown of Yao Mingzhu, the heroic in-laws of Pu Province, to reveal the magnificent legend of the father-in-law across time and space, and comfort the heroic soul in a different way. Yesterday, Li Li was invited to participate in a special activity held by Meizhou Daily on welcoming the 100 th anniversary of the founding of the CPC and accepted an exclusive interview with reporters.

Born in the mainland, raised in Taiwan, and later lived in the United States. For decades in the United States, she insisted on writing in Chinese. In the stories she writes, there are always two places involving the mainland and Taiwan.

"The biographical documentary work 'White Dove Mulan' is a very special book." Li Li said that this is a real family history, and the "protagonists" recorded are her in-laws Xue Jiemin and Yao Mingzhu, who have never met, a couple of CCP members who were full of ideals and loved each other in the war, went to Taiwan in 1948 to engage in underground revolutionary work, and finally bravely became righteous. After the release of the new book, she has told the story of the heroic father-in-law in Shanghai and other cities, as well as in colleges and universities, but this time is different, this is in the hometown of the martyrs.

"Soon after I met the boy who lost his parents at the age of 15, I speculated from fragments of discourse and outdated materials that his life was a tortuous, complex and painful family history. He was 20 years old and still hurt. As the only daughter-in-law of the Xue family, when talking about her husband's family experience, she believes that she should bear the responsibility of restoring the truth of family history.

"In the fall of 1977, I returned to the mainland for the first time from the United States to try to inquire about my in-laws." In 1979, when China and the United States established diplomatic relations, she returned to the mainland again and was received by Luo Qingchang, who was in charge of Taiwan work at that time. To this day, Li Li clearly remembers the memorabilia of "tracing," and in the past 30 years, she has traveled thousands of times across the strait to pursue, hundreds of pages of yellowed and cracked letterhead notes, and more than 2,000 pages of blood-stained and tear-stained declassified archives that are difficult to read, which she has gradually read, traced family relics, inquired about national history, and the mysteries have been set aside layer by layer, and the unusual lives and revolutionary work of Xue Jiemin and Yao Mingzhu have jumped out of the paper.

In the long journey of pursuit, Li Li found that these letterheads, notes, and archives are not only family histories, but also records of a big era: revolution and love, faith and persistence, suffering and redemption, and sincerity and kindness, ego and great love, selflessness and dedication from the most ordinary ordinary people. It is precisely because many such stories have converged into a long volume of the Arduous and Magnificent History of the Chinese Nation.

"The water of Mulan Creek has been flowing for a long time, and the White Pigeon Ridge stands tall and strong, and the beloved grace of the villagers can never be forgotten." This is the last pen written by Xue Jiemin on January 18, 1963, before his inauguration. At the last moment of his life, he used the landscape of his hometown in Putian as a symbol to remember the place where he could never go back, and he had been thinking about it for 47 years.

Stepping on the land of Putian, witnessing a mountain and a river, perceiving a grass and a tree, the yellowed pages in Li Li's mind and the rambling handwriting became clearer and clearer. "Looking up at The White Dove Ridge and looking at Mulan Creek is like facing the heroic spirits of your parents, feeling their serious and loving eyes." Li Li was very happy to learn that Mulan Creek is already the most beautiful hometown river in the country, and the implementation of the comprehensive treatment of Mulan Creek was also written into the national "14th Five-Year Plan" plan and the outline of long-term goals for 2035.

"This is my 6th return to Putian." Li Li remembered that the first time he returned to Pu, he visited Meizhou Island. Mazu is the goddess of peace on both sides of the Taiwan Strait, and there are Mazu temples on the mainland and Taiwan. Where there are Chinese in the world, there is Mazu, and there is also a Mazu Temple in San Francisco, USA. She admired the Mazu spirit of virtue, good deeds, and great love.

"The three children left behind by the martyrs inherit the great love of their parents' families and the country, use the 'martyrs' pension as a seed fund, and set up a foundation under the name of their parents to continue to assist students." Every year, 165,000 yuan is donated to support 55 students in need. Li Li said that the three brothers and sisters also donated funds to establish the "Jieming Xinxin Primary School" in their hometown Xianyou.

What made her deeply touched was also the great love of her husband Xue Renwangyi's parents. After the early death of their parents, Dr. Zhang Yuankai and his wife regarded Xue Renwang's brothers and sisters as their own and gave them more love than their children. Under their upbringing, Xue renwang completed high school and college education, and is now a professor at Stanford University School of Medicine. At the time of the event, he was lecturing in Zhengzhou.

"This time back home is full of harvest and very touched. For the first time, I also came to my hometown Fengting to visit the Xue Ancestral Hall and learn about the patriotic deeds of Xue Yi, the ancestor of the Xue family. My hometown also held an exhibition of the deeds of my in-laws and mother-in-law, inheriting the spirit of heroism and martyrdom, which is gratifying. In Fengting Xiaqiao Primary School, I saw that the classroom was open, the desks and chairs were neat, the matching was perfect, the children put on red scarves for me, and I told the children about the deeds of the martyrs, and the scene was very warm. Now that the motherland is prosperous and the hometown is beautiful, the blood of the martyrs has not flowed in vain, and they can comfort their spirits in heaven. Li Li said that through in-depth visits, excavations and additions to lesser-known exclusive materials, such as a group photo at the old residence of Tian Cen Di, updated the existing "earliest" group photo of the Xue Jiemin brothers. The Xianyou County Archives has collected an underground party questionnaire of Xue Zhongmin, the third brother of Xue Jiemin, and added an important historical evidence, which has left valuable information for the future continuation of family history.

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Li Li, born in 1948, has another pen name Xue Li. His original name was Bolly. A native of Anhui And County, he was born in Nanjing. In 1949, he went to Taiwan with his parents. Graduated from Kaohsiung Girls' High School and Department of History, National Taiwan University. In the 1970s, he went to the United States to study at the Institute of Political Science at Purdue University. Former editor and faculty member, he now lives in Stanford, California, usa, specializing in writing. He has published more than 30 novels, essays, translations, film scripts, etc. in Chinese mainland, Taiwan and Hong Kong, and has won a number of novel awards and film script awards (and made into films). (Source: Meizhou Daily reporter Huang Lingyan Zhuo Jinping)