An Unconventional Father

Guang Ming was the earliest and most influential figure in Yong’s life. Tagging along with his father, who took his firstborn son with him wherever he went, Yong observed and admired his father’s varied interactions and activities around their village. Even at five years old, he appreciated the skill and knowledge involved in the buffalo-assessing practice he witnessed. He also noticed the respect that his father commanded from onlookers. Guang Ming knew a lot about many things in addition to buffalo assessment: animal husbandry, farming, fishing, bamboo weaving, business, and leadership. And he never seemed content to settle for the cards that life had dealt him—he was always looking for ways to improve his family’s circumstances.

This drive had motivated Guang Ming. After his parents died and before Yong was born, Guang Ming negotiated good marriages for his two younger sisters, ensuring they would be respected and welltreated. This sense of responsibility spurred him to launch various ventures that would benefit not only his family but also his village. Yong watched his father secretly butcher pigs for other villagers, thereby helping them avoid having to share half of their animals with local government officials. He also learned that Guang Ming and a friend pushed a wooden handcart more than fifty miles to buy coal and sell it to villages during the return journey—an illegal private enterprise in Mao’s China.31 Although the government owned and operated all enterprises, this did not stop Yong’s father and his friend from selling much-needed coal that was unavailable where they lived.

Yong’s father understood the need to reach beyond the narrow self-interest of his family to help the collective. One of his larger ventures involved securing a contract from the village to raise fish in exchange for the use of one of the village ponds as a fish farm. At first, villagers supported the idea. When they saw how successful