When I was still in China, my friend and I vowed to tell the story. But I was able to do so only after I came to America—the land of the free. Without access to the needed information that can only be obtained in a free country, and the healing and the perspectives that can only be acquired through time, distance and living among free-thinking, free-spirited people, telling the story would remain but a dream.

     For decades, I was a prisoner of my past. The dignified life here brought out my seething anger at the kind of life we have been through in Communist China and compelled me to look back and confront my painful past, and relive that nightmarish life. This then turned into a nagging need to understand myself. I began by writing down the most painful memories. As the buried memories came out little by little, my writing expanded. To sequence things out and to better understand myself and the nature of the events that happened to me and my family, I began to study the history of modern China, especially the Mao years and Communism. My retirement from teaching finally brought me the needed peace of mind and a clear view, the closure of my slow healing process and the completion of the work.