A Glimpse into My Journey of Service

I (aEmily YueXin) was born in my parents home depicted in picture #2, surrounded by bookshelves. This had been a lighthearted laughing topic among friends during my upbringing regarding my father. My parents home is situated in a neighborhood that is an equivalent of Madison Avenue of the Manhattan. It's a cosmopolitan city, nine times larger and five times older than New York City.

However, during my upbringing from 1966 to 1976, this environment of my parents home was overshadowed by the turmoil of the mobs' revolution that my father's properties were seized orelse sealed during my growing up.

In the photo taken back then when my husband and I were visiting my parents home in 1990s, I was holding our newborn baby, with my sister sitting beside me. My parents-in-law have honored my sister as the "Godmother of their grandchildren" through my husband and me, because of the sacrifice and contributions she did as a result of one child policy started in mid 1970s,  which my husband and I and my sister and my father joined by our little children helped to end in 2005, when my father was the only child born in 1920 and my father-in-law shared his only son with his best friend who didn't have child with his wife.

On either side of us in that same picture #2, there sat and half-stood two others: one sitting on my sister's side was ELouis' Middle-East colleague dispatched to help the far region;  the other, half stood on my side was that colleague's daughter whom a mother had to leave behind when involuntarily dispatched as contracted expert in 1980s to assist in the desert region. During a visit to her daughter back home, she learned that my husband and I were in town visiting my parents with our newborn. She came to see me, bringing her daughter along, and shared the heart-wrenching story of Elouis’ personal life.

(* During the tumultuous years of the communist mobs Revolution from 1966 to 1976, I often went to schools with two close friends: ELouis and Hon. We shared something in common, which was,  we all were born with full parents but we were deprived of full or partial parenting in that brutal communist mobs era. A couple of semesters later in the early 1970s, we 3 good friend (ELouis, Hon and I were joined by a new friend LiLi) LiLi is from a Chinese Muslim family moved into my parents' neighborhood in 1970s. Her father was a member of a volunteer armed civilian group from the slum region of HongKou District outside the old city gates. LiLi''s father moved into my parents neighborhood after forcing some middle class family in the community out of their home and just so that he and his armed partners could moved in like that. 

Our school principal advised me who was the monitor of my class of over 50 pupils to look out for LiLi. So I paid more attention to her, as we told my parents my thought that the violence was NOT done by her who was just a child like the rest of my girl friends. My best friends Elouis and Hon, and I decided to include her as a new friend in our daily activities, going back & forth to attending school and doing homework and playing after school together, we indeed had lots of fun together. ]

Years later in life, I—whose parents were exiled, being condemned "those conservative stinky intellectuals", into labor camp and my mother had to do lots of jobs to keep us children fed — successfully passed the exams to gain admission to a four-year university that could help me to save some of my mother's hard earned money and ease my mother's worry that I might be dispatched to over 1400 meters high mountainous region like they did to my elder sister and got robbed even the entrance exams scores. My middle school friend Elouis, raised by a divorced mother due to the Korean War, also passed his exams to attend a two-year college. Hon, whose parents were back then sent to assist impoverished regions in Sichuan, was brought up by her spinster aunt who was teacher to deaf, blind, and mute students, after the exams, Hon got enrolled in a vocational school. Additionally, LiLi benefited from the equivalent of what American called 'the affirmative action'"  for the minorities which lowered the score requirement for minorities by over 30 points less,  allowing her to be admitted to a vocational school like Hon as well, but Hon grew up without parenting because her father had to be dispatched to aide the impoverished region, when LiLi's father moved to my parents neighborhood by weaponry violence and LiLi was raised with full parents with everyone's care for her minority identity... (Whenever I talked about that, I got mocked by friends here with the American saying as " squeaky wheels 🛞 got all the grease --- 🤓 - although it's a complicated issue  whenever we try to solve the immigration problems in non-immigration country.)

Motivated by friends of my father's aspirations, I later passed the necessary exams to be officially assigned as a university faculty member.

ELouis worked hard to be promoted serving as a trading counselor, later dispatched to the middle East region focusing on supporting trade. Hon worked as an accountant.  LiLi also liked to be an accountant, but in a different field. LiLi chose to specialize in agricultural accounting and become an accountant for crops. Born in the slum-region out of the old city gates area, she was the first to understand the importance of food for the stomach. Whereas we city slicks work hard to be accomplished in academics and then following our idealist parents footsteps by helping the people in harsh regions, voluntarily or involuntarily 😳 🤷 🤓

My professors frequently showcased pride in my achievements, pointing out that I outperformed President Reagan in my academic tests scores. This distinction opened the doors to over 40 graduate school acceptances across the United States. During my pursuit of gratitude schools, not only did I perform excellently in changing urban New York public school education, I also met my alumni friend (later became my husband) started engaging in initiatives aimed at averting potential global conflicts, including World War III, with older generation American Patriots. Whereas, my children are also passionately involved with their father's mission of helping the underprivileged communities in America as well as Africa and other regions.

In picture number 4, my husband and I took our newborn to visit my parents back then. At the same time, my high school friends were paying me a visit. The woman wearing glasses is Hon (as mentioned above), who was raised by her spinster aunt while her father, an engineer, was dispatched to the impoverished region of Sichuan during the tumultuous period of the Cultural Revolution from 1966 to 1976. Next to Hon is the mother of another high school friend, Elouis. Elouis successfully passed her exams to attend a two-year college, after which she was sent by government. to work in the Middle East region. Due to cultural differences, she never married. Her father, like many others, was sent to Korea by Mao to assist in the Korean War. Tragically, Mao lost his son during the Korean war in conflict with America in the 1959s, and Elouis's father later married a Korean nurse, resulting in a divorce from Elouis's mother with baby ELouis. As a result, Elouis was raised by her mother, while her older sister lived with their father and his second wife a Korean nurse.

ELouis grew up harboring resentment towards her father for taking two wives. Later, she found herself reconciled to forgive her father after her private experience in a tumultuous relationship with an Arab boyfriend, who was out of shock to be revealed to have a household filled with kids with several wives. This drove her to flee the house she was visiting and ran and ran through the desert. She eventually came to forgiving terms with her father. However, she struggled to find stability in the harsh environment she was sent to work in the Middle East, remained single and never dated any more ...

During this time, her mother frequently visited mine, asking my mother for a comfortingly friendly presence amidst the chaos of her own tragic personal life due to war and her daughter's lonely personal life in peace time due to cultural differences...

Before my busy college study years, my high school girl friends and I often gathered at my parents' house to do our homework together. We would also enjoy singing classics like "Moon River" and " Blanka" etc. and I remember "Que Sera, Sera" was ELouis' favorite song that she liked to have us play the "moms" to answer  the little child's question at ELouis’ mom's place.

Then my big brother in late 1970s during exile as children of anti-injustice-communist intellectual father, invented "the engineering Technology of Large scale planking" making peace to use his invented technology to build 14 storey housing in the slums of Honkou district where LiLi's father moved into my exiled parents neighborhood by force... So no more minorities using black market weapons to disturb the innocent civilian living ...

In the late 1970s, my older brother, an exiled child of an anti-communist intellectual father, and therefore back & knee got broken, invented the "Engineering Technology of Large Scale Planking." His innovative approach was instrumental in constructing 14-story housing units in the slums of the Hongkou district out of the old city region at our own ancestors money, where LiLi's father had forcibly relocated to my parents' neighborhood. My big brother's initiative significantly reduced the brutal reliance on black-market weapons, and fostering a safer environment for innocent civilians, and also opened some new zoning for slum-residents who could have better living conditions.

When LiLi didn't pass her college entrance exams, she still got to be a successful accountant. She could also date early unlike  the ones including me who passed exams to be studying in 4 years colleges in the years of 1979 and 1980, but with that rule of "no dating allowed or be flunked" which was abolished in 1983-84. After several failed relationships, often due to cultural differences, LiLi ultimately, she married into a family with additional housing better than the space her father had to, so pathetically compromise his humanity, to use a gun 😳 to throw a middle class family out to obtain a room by sharing the booty with his fellow gunners of the whole unit.

Lili and her husband have a lovely daughter, under the complexities of the one-child policy promoted to Mao by Mogalian-Muslim-Chinese population expert Ying chu Ma since 1950 but was  rejected by Mao due to loss of population caused by decades of war till after the mid-1970s.

LiLi confessed that ELouis life-encounter as a dispatched counselor in the mid east region, with guys chasing her but having households of lots of wives, should really be her fate if hundreds of years ago. Reflecting the "twist of fate", Lili expressed on how different her life might have been if her Arabic ancestors hadn't journeyed to China centuries ago following the trade-trail to China

Unfortunately, I lost touch with everyone for decades while dedicating my time to helping the American communities. Still, those old photographs bring back smiles and cherished memories.