Chapter 40 Loyalty and filial piety

When Kai-fu Lee was studying in Taipei, he filled in "Huayang County, Sichuan Province" as his hometown, but he seldom heard his father say that his hometown is Sichuan.Li Kaifu remembers that for a while, when his father Li Tianmin felt that it was impossible to return to the mainland, he was very sad and silent. He didn't mention his hometown. This is his favorite place but he will never go back.Li Kaimin said that his father was a very deep person, and he only showed nostalgic emotions when writing Spring Festival couplets.She remembers that every Spring Festival, her father would write a couplet saying "Always work hard to feed horses, and look forward to returning home every year".

Not only Li Tianmin, this sentiment also stirred in the hearts of many people who were imprisoned in Taipei back then.Yu Youren once wrote "Looking at the Mainland": "Bury me on a high mountain, look at my hometown. My hometown is invisible, and I will never forget it; bury me on a high mountain, look at my mainland. The mainland is not visible, I can only cry bitterly. The sky is blue, the wild is vast, and above the mountains, the country has its own mourning.” Many “outsiders” who moved to Taiwan were buried on the coast or high mountains after death, accompanied by waves and bright moons, wandering lonely souls, looking at the mainland.

On New Year's Day in 1979, the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress issued the "Message to Compatriots in Taiwan", advocating that "the two sides of the Taiwan Strait should realize air and mail services as soon as possible" and "develop trade, communicate with each other, and carry out economic exchanges."The relationship between the two sides of the strait is at a freezing point, and there is a faint hope of thawing. In May 1986, Air China and Taiwan China Airlines reached an agreement on the handover of cargo planes, crew members and cargo from Taiwan China Airlines that landed in Guangzhou, and signed the "Minutes of Talks between the Two Airlines".This negotiation is the first public contact negotiation between the two sides of the strait after 37 years of isolation, led by the government behind the scenes.

Li Tianmin had the opportunity to return to the mainland. In September 1990, the Red Cross Societies on both sides of the strait negotiated on the organization of the two sides to participate in witnessing the repatriation of stowaways from the mainland by the competent authorities, and signed the "Golden Gate Agreement" on the 12th.That month, 81-year-old Li Tianmin returned to Sichuan alone.He was dressed in a suit and leather shoes, and the first sentence he said after meeting his younger brother Li Tianfu was "I will never affect you again!" At this time, his favorite mother had passed away for 30 years, and his classmate Luo Ruiqing of Whampoa Sixth Class had passed away for 12 years. And his youngest son, Kai-fu Lee, just joined Apple after graduating from a PhD in computer science in the United States.

Seeing the Li family, Li Tianmin burst into tears when talking about his mother.He planted two cypress trees with his own hands in front of his mother's grave, crying loudly because he could not fulfill his filial piety, and could not afford to kneel.Later, when I went to Wenshu Monastery in Chengdu, Li Tianmin performed rituals for his mother, and the white-haired old man knelt for another hour.Seeing that the old man was too old, Li Kaizhao, the son of his third brother, quickly helped him up and knelt down on his behalf. When Li Tianmin returned to Taiwan, he brought a seal with him, engraved with "The young and the young leave the hometown and the boss returns."According to Li Kaizhao's recollection, this is a sentence Li Tianmin said to himself when he returned home to visit relatives. A famous gold and stone master carved it into a seal and gave it to Li Tianmin.After returning to Taipei, Li Tianmin often looked at the seal and couldn't help it, and he burst into tears.The emotions that had been surging in his body under the silent lava broke out. He repeatedly mentioned his hometown in Sichuan, and talked about his mother, his brother, and his descendants when he met everyone. In 1993, Li Tianmin died and was buried in Taipei. The trip to Sichuan in 1990 was the only time he returned to his hometown from Taipei.

Bai Xianyong, the Taiwanese novelist and son of Bai Chongxi, wrote in the novel "Father of Liang": "There is another sentence left by your teacher when he was dying: In the future, when you return to the mainland, you must move his coffin back to your hometown no matter what. You Go and tell his descendants that they must keep a set of military uniforms that Meng Yang often wears, and his medals must also be saved, and his clothes are important for moving spirits in the future." 2009 is the 100th anniversary of Li Tianmin's birth. Li Kaimin said that his father's last wish was to be buried next to his mother's grave.But if this is the case, it will be difficult for the children to worship him.They plan to send a hat left by their father back to Sichuan, and build a clothes tomb next to their grandmother's grave, so that their father will always be with his mother.Five years after Li Tianmin's death, in 1998, Li Kaimin embarked on a family-seeking journey for the first time and arrived in Sichuan. During the Sichuan earthquake in 2008, she went to the disaster area twice to provide psychological counseling and communicate with the victims in Sichuan dialect.She said: "If my father is alive, he will definitely be heartbroken to see the catastrophe suffered by Sichuan." Li Tianmin only spoke Sichuan dialect all his life, and his accent remained unchanged for decades.Because his father passed away for too long, Kai-fu Lee's father's accent was a little forgotten.But when he went to Sichuan and heard the authentic Sichuan dialect, he suddenly felt that his father was alive again.He said: "When I went to Chengdu, I spoke Sichuan dialect with people. Others thought it was bad, so they didn't tell me." In 2004, Kai-fu Lee went to Sichuan for the first time, met his cousins, and went to the grave of his grandmother. Xiang, and gave a speech at Sichuan University. In March 2009, he gave a speech at Sichuan Agricultural University in Ya'an, Sichuan. His uncle Li Tianfu was the vice president of Sichuan Agricultural University, and his cousin Li Kaizhao and other relatives live in Ya'an.

Kai-fu Lee’s regret is that he could not see his grandma since he was a child: “I have never seen my grandfather, grandmother, grandpa, and grandma. And when I think of my parents’ love for my children, I feel that my childhood is still Something is missing, not orphans of course, but still a bit lost. My grandpa passed away very early, and my grandma was a great woman who sent all three sons to prestigious universities 80 years ago." Also from other provinces, Lee Kai-fu shares many similarities with Ang Lee and Ma Ying-jeou: they both have serious fathers with deep family and country traditions, and they have high hopes for their children's efforts for China's future.I asked Lee Kai-fu if he felt it, and Lee Kai-fu said he hadn't thought about it deeply, but he joked: "There is a difference. Ma Ying-jeou's father expected Ma Ying-jeou to be a 'president'. My father did not have such a request." Lee Kai-fu and Lee Ang Another similarity is that the relatives of the father's generation who stayed in the mainland all suffered the most pain in the world.Kai-fu Lee has returned to his hometown, but Ang Lee has not returned to his hometown in De'an, Jiangxi so far.

Li Kaimin said: "Father's wish is also one of the reasons why Kai-fu returned to China. Kai-fu is a filial son." Whenever Kai-fu Lee had a vacation, he would go back to Taipei to accompany his 90-year-old mother.Li Kaimin said: "He is such a serious person, he will go crazy as soon as he returns to his mother's house, joking, telling jokes, imitating others to make mother laugh, just like the seven or eight-year-old naughty boy who used to be." Li Kaifu also learned to play mahjong, " In this way, I can communicate with her in my mother’s language. My mother would laugh happily when she saw that the CEO of Google could even make a mistake in mahjong.”

In the article "My Father Li Tianmin", Li Kaimin wrote: "(Li Kaifu) There is a half-century age difference between him and his father, but he racked his brains to buy and feed his father before his sick bed, and he took care of it himself. His younger sibling Xianling is now A rare and virtuous woman who wholeheartedly cares for her husband and raises her children, works hard and enjoys it. Their marriage was arranged by their father behind the scenes. Seeing their love is what comforts my father the most." "When my father died of illness, his face was peaceful and there was a smile on his mouth, but all the family members knew that there must be great regret in his heart. He told his children that he had a dream when he was dying. When I came to the beach in my dream, I picked up a piece of white paper on a stone with the words "Love of China" written on it. He also said that he had a plan that could not be realized, and that was to write another book called "China's Love" Hope for the future of human beings.” Of course, he also passed on his most cherished things to Kaifu, which shows that he had great expectations for his son many years ago.”

Li Kaifu said that in the future, he will complete his father's last wish - the unwritten article "Hope for the Future of the Chinese" www.FReexs.cn.He read "Liu Shaoqi Biography", which was the first book his father wrote after he went to Taiwan.He found a website that specializes in used books and bought all of "Liu Shaoqi's Biography". Li Tianmin did not see the day when Li Kaifu went to the mainland to make a living. In 1998, Lee Kai-fu returned to China from the United States to build the Microsoft China Research Institute, and in 2005 he founded Google China. The shadow of his father has always followed Lee Kai-fu.In China, he is probably the executive of a multinational company most enthusiastic about dealing with Chinese university students.This is not only the need of work - both Microsoft and Google needed to attract young talents in China back then, but also his personal interest - the interest inherited from his father.Kai-fu Lee not only wrote an open letter to college students, but also gave countless speeches in colleges and universities across the country.Both the letters and the speeches resonated with Chinese college students and their parents.

Kai-fu Lee's most memorable speech was at Tsinghua University.A student asked him why he wanted to go back to China.He said: "I don't know why, I suddenly burst into feelings for China, and I remembered my father's expectations for me. My parents told me since I was a child that I hope I will contribute to China in the future. I hope that when I leave this world, someone I will remember that when China was rising, Kai-Fu Lee once returned to China and did some things for China.” Chen Huailin, Chief Scientist of Asia Embedded, commented on the significance of Kai-fu Lee to Chinese college students: "The enlightenment to the world of young college students is far more important and far-reaching than one or two high-quality academic articles. The articles written by Kai-fu Lee during these years in China are For loyalty. Loyalty to the Chinese people, loyalty to the Chinese nation. I have never doubted this point, I am sure. I can see the expectation between the lines in his article. Where does Kai-fu Lee’s loyalty come from? I personally think it comes from for his filial piety." "It can be said that Kai-fu Lee created a historical precedent, that is, how to seamlessly combine career and personal ideals and ambitions as a senior corporate manager. In fact, we have not seen the second such person so far."