it all started with this photo

Chiang Kai-shek (seated) with my grandfather, Hán Zēng Dòng. Nanjing, 1947.

My dance with my ancestors, my attempt to understand my history, started with this photo. In the small New England town where I grew up, the houses were replete with generous stair halls whose walls were lined with silver-framed, family photos that reached back generations on both sides. Our Chinese immigrant home contrasted in its starkness. A few photos from my father’s family, too few to hang in our stair hall. And from my mother, this was the only photo we knew of that spoke to her past. This formal portrait of her father, the General to us, and his supreme commander, the Kuomintang Generalissimo, Chiang Kai-shek (Jian Jieshi).