Perhaps I should call it a Book, City and Wine Country Tour. I had a book talk on The Doctor Who Was Followed by Ghosts at the San Francisco Main Library and the Chinatown library as well as an interview with Talk Tonight KTSF Channel 26.

Day 1. My wife and I arrived in San Francisco on Aug 15, a day before my presentation at the San Francisco Main Library. It wasn’t until much later that I realized that Aug 15 was Chinese lunar July 15, the Ghost Festival. Talk about Ghosts! I have never believed in coincidences.

After settling into the hotel, we walked to the Fisherman’s Wharf.  At the Wharf, we mingled with the tourists to watch street performers and shop for souvenirs. It was a nice, warm afternoon. We were tempted by the sights and smells of the cooked crab shops lining the street, but there was no place to sit and enjoy them, so we had to pass.

Fisherman’s Wharf

By early evening, the legendary fog rolled in with amazing speed. The temperature suddenly dropped. So we spent about an hour hunting for winter jackets. It turned out that we were not alone. Many tourists were surprised by the sudden cold weather. The shopkeepers were probably laughing. They must have sold hundreds of jackets that evening.

After an early supper at the Wharf, we took a stroll along the water. Looking across the Wharf, there sat the infamous Alcatraz, shrouded in mist, taking on a ghostly appearance. We were quite satisfied look at it from this distance, not any closer. Then we walked to Pier 39 to see the sea lions sleeping on docks or playing their territorial games – pushing the new comers into the water. In the square there was the Bubba Gump Shrimp restaurant. I often imitate Bubba from Forest Gump: “there’s pineapple shrimp, lemon shrimp, coconut shrimp, pepper shrimp, shrimp soup, shrimp stew, shrimp salad, shrimp and potatoes, shrimp burger, shrimp sandwich. Th-that’s about it.”

Day 2. My presentation at the San Francisco Main Library at the Civic Center was at 2:00 pm. So in the morning, we went to explore Chinatown. Impression of Chinatown center: locals with grocery bags, tourists with cameras pointing in all directions, produce stalls, herb stores, restaurants, pagoda-style roofs, red lanterns, flags and banners, the dragon-adorned street lamps, a demonstrator with mixed messages…

Chinatown

My host Doris at the Main Library is a very nice lady and very detail oriented. Before my presentation, she had already done so much publicity work and so many articles about the book had appeared in the local papers like San Francisco Chronicle and World Journal.   Many Chinese attendants regretted that there was no Chinese version of the book yet. I explained that because it contains many forbidden topics, it can’t be published in China right now.  

I did the presentation in English and Chinese. Juggling two languages was challenging.  I have never done that before. Even though I have done many presentations and interviews, I am still not very good at speeches. I am more interested in what the audience has to say.  The audience is always willing to interact with me. Because the title of the book is The Doctor Who Was Followed by Ghosts, one elderly lady asked me to tell more ghosts stories from the book. Even though my mother had told me some strange and ghostly stories, I explained to her, the title is more symbolic, because during Mao’s era, millions of innocent people died of injustice and their ghosts are still not consoled today. However, if some people prefer to take it literally, it is fine by me. I have never seen a ghost myself but I did hear ghost stories from people I know and trust.

I was a little distracted by the elderly lady’s question. A nice lady from the audience came to my rescue. She had read the book beforehand and had many kind words to say. What surprised me was how many details she remembered about the story. Unlike some similar books, she commented, my mother’s story is very objective, a matter of fact.  I said that that was the way my mother had told the story to me. She also said that my mother was a very strong-willed.

There were a couple of Chinese people who also had the idea of writing memoirs, but they were afraid of causing trouble with the Chinese government. Just imagine! Even though they live in the West they are still fearful of persecution for just writing a book. I can definitely relate.

It was a very successful event. More than forty people attended.  

Day 3. My presentation at the Chinatown branch library was at 2:30, so we have the whole morning to look around. So we headed to Lombard Street, “the crookedest street in the world” because of its eight sharp turns on a 40-degree slope. Some say, it is only the second crookedest street in the world, the first one is Wall Street. Well, you probably heard that one before. It wasn’t easy to climb the steep hill to see it. We don’t complain anymore about the hills in Vancouver after that.

The Chinatown branch library is a very old building with an elegant façade. My host Sally, a very nice and gentle girl, was running up and down the whole time to make sure everything went smoothly. Everything went well except for when my computer froze so the slideshow was interrupted for a while. Some people in the audience suspected there could be ghosts in this old building interfering with the computer. A young girl from the audience came to my rescue. This was the second time that I was saved by a young girl. The first time was when I was doing a presentation at the Coquitlam Library in Vancouver. That was embarrassing, but I was so thankful to them. Other than the computer glitch, the event went very well. It was such a mixed crowd of forty pleasant people. Several people stayed behind afterward and we chatted. I was somewhat relieved after the two presentations.  

Library Book Talk

Day 4. My interview with the Talk Tonight KTSF26 host May was at 8:30 in the evening, so we have a whole day to explore the city. So we took a city bus tour. First stop was Golden Gate Bridge. I was surely taken by the majestic structure. But I was so busy taking pictures that I didn’t take a very good look at it.  It was only when we boarded the bus and were leaving the Bridge and when “I Left My Heart in San Francisco” started to play, that I was suddenly overwhelmed by such a sad feeling for no apparent reason.

Then we went through the beautiful Golden Gate Park that was supposedly planted by an eccentric gardener (in my mind  Stanley Park is bigger), the well decorated gay community Castro area, Civic Center where the Main Library and City Hall are located, Union Square that makes the ladies on the bus want to jump out of the windows and go shopping, (S)Nob Hill where the rich live, and of course the Wharf. 

At supper time we decided to try the Stinking Rose restaurant which is famous for its garlic.  Even their ceilings are decorated with garlic cloves. The foods are infused with garlic – garlic crab, garlic mussels, garlic ice cream, garlic Martini. Th-that’s about it. The roasted garlic was so good to eat with bread and I completely forgot that I shouldn’t have eaten garlic because I had a TV interview a couple of hours later. So before the show, I brushed my teeth, rinsed my mouth with mouth wash, then on the way there, I chewed gum and hoped nobody would notice anything. Anyway, the interview went very well. May is a very good host and asked some tough questions.  

Day 5. I finally could relax after the business was done. So we took a Napa Wine Tour. We are not big drinkers, but just want to see the beautiful wine country. After some wine tasting, it was as if everybody had known each other for a long time. People were pretty happy on the tour. At Sonoma, one Italian tourist almost missed the bus. He showed up just before we were going to leave without him. The tour guide talked tough about the rules but I guess he didn’t really have the heart to leave him there. “What’s the difference between a tourist and a hitchhiker?” he said to us. “A few seconds!”

Napa Wine Country

On this trip, everywhere we went, we met so many nice people. Like the song goes: “If you’re going to San Francisco, You’re gonna meet some gentle people there.”  It was  such an unforgettable experience.

Talking about banned books in China, we need to go back some two thousand years in 213 BC when the first emperor Qin Shi Huang ordered the burning of all philosophy books and history books, so he could suppress the freedom of speech and unify all thoughts and political opinions. This was followed by the live burial of a large number of intellectuals who did not comply with the state dogma.

Ming and Qing dynasties were two of the darkest periods of time in Chinese history for freedom of speech. These two dynasties were notorious for their Literary Persecution – imprisonment or execution of intellectuals for their writings which rulers considered offensive. Books were banned or destroyed.

Some two thousand years after the first emperor’s book burning, Mao pulled off the same trick during the Cultural Revolution starting in 1966. Young people (Red Guards) listened to Mao’s call and burned Chinese literature and classics, together with Western books, and they destroyed paintings and antiquities. Writers and artists were beaten to death, sent to labor camps and many were driven to suicide.  The only books available those days were Mao’s writings, used as study material for the masses during drawn out political meetings. When I was in elementary school, Mao’s writing even replaced text books.

Over 30 years after Mao….many things has changed but the present government is still practicing the old tradition of book banning. China does business with the West, but shares very little values with the West in terms of democracy and human rights. Despite fast economic development, the government continues to deprive people of basic human rights such as: freedom to speak.  The press and publication is still under tight control by the Communist Party. China’s Internet censorship is regarded by many as the most pervasive and sophisticated in the world. (Great FireWall, the new “world wonder”) The strict censorship prevents Chinese citizens from learning about past and current failures of the Party that could create anti-government sentiment.

The Doctor Who Was Followed by Ghosts which touches on many forbidden topics is one of the books banned from publication in China.

Many people ask me why I spent almost eight years compiling my mother Dr. Li Qunying’s memoir. There are many reasons, many of which I don’t even understand myself. It may be simpler if I just call it my mission or fate, since my mother is a fatalist. That said, there are a few obvious reasons that come to mind.

This memoir is an unfulfilled wish of my parents. Both of them attempted to write this family story, but they were afraid of political persecution and never realized their dreams. The burden of writing the memoir fell onto my shoulders.

I was born in Shandong Province, China and grew up during the Culture Revolution when many innocent people were branded as the enemies of the state. My first memories began at age five, just at the time when my parents were persecuted. My father was sent to the labor camp (Chinese Gulag) and was driven to the edge of suicide despite his loyalty to the country. My family was exiled to the countryside to “reform thought hard labor.” It was a very traumatic experience for me. So in a way, by writing this book, I am seeking justice (not revenge) and closure.

It was a lot of hard work and frustration. Many parts of my mother’s story were painful for my mother and me to talk about such as the death of my second brother and my father. I was conflicted. On one hand, I strongly believed that the story had to be told. Even today, China has not come to terms with its past, but instead the government is still trying to cover it up. The ghosts from the past have not been consoled. On the other hand I was worried that this would bring back painful memories for my family since we are trying to put it behind us. Luckily I have my family’s support and a mother who is stronger and more resilient than I could have imagined.

I made several trips to China to talk to my mother, taped her stories, translated them into English and compiled them into a memoir. It has incredible historical value: life-and-death stories of 20th-century China, told from the point of view of a woman doctor. Chinese memoirs with such a long time span of some 80 years are extremely rare. And the feedback from the media and readers is great. That makes the eight years of hard work well worth it.