if ya get a chance watch the part about Ming Tsai ...unbelievable
Ming Tsai, finds that his roots can be traced back more than 2,000 years
Transcript
BUT UNLIKE MY OTHER GUESTS, MING KNEW THESE ANCESTORS WELL.
THEY MOVED TO OHIO AT THE END OF THEIR LIVES–AND HELPED INSPIRE MING’S LOVE OF FOOD.
GATES: What do you remember about your grandparents?
TSAI: Ah, they were the best. They lived in Dayton, Ohio, um, in an apartment a mile-and-a-half from our house. Every Friday night was dinner at the grandparents, which I just loved because both were great cooks. Ye-Ye, my grandfather, grew everything. I mean he would be like, Look at this cucumber! Look at these chili peppers!
GATES: (Laughs).
TSAI: He made…he made his own sambal! La jiao, the spicy condiment?
GATES: Yeah.
TSAI: So he would take garlic and his own chilies and make it. They would make…they would do their own noodles, their own wonton wrappers. And so, every Friday we’d go. You know, I’m ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen. I was so into the food.
GATES VO: MING’S GRANDPARENTS COOKED THE TRADITIONAL FOOD OF THE THEIR HOMELAND BUT THEY RARELY SPOKE OF THEIR EXPERIENCES BACK IN CHINA––PERHAPS BECAUSE THOSE EXPERIENCES HAD BEEN SO TRAUMATIC.
B-ROLL: FOOTAGE OF JAPANESE INVASION OF CHINA IN WORLD WAR 2
GATES VO: IN 1937, WHEN MING’S GRANDFATHER WAS 38 YEARS OLD, THE JAPANESE INVADED CHINA––PART OF A CONFLICT THAT WOULD SOON EXPAND INTO WORLD WAR II.
WITHIN MONTHS, JAPANESE FORCES ENTERED BEIJING, WHERE MING’S GRANDFATHER WAS COMPTROLLER AT YENCHING UNIVERSITY. YE-YE HAD BEEN AT THE UNIVERSITY FOR MORE THAN A DECADE–SERVING IN MANY DIFFERENT ROLES–EVEN DESIGNING SIDEWALKS FOR THE SCHOOL.
AS THE JAPANESE DREW NEAR, MOST OF THE UNIVERSITY’S EMPLOYEES FLED––BUT A HANDFUL REMAINED BEHIND…
INCLUDING MING’S GRANDFATHER.
GATES: Why do you think he stayed?
TSAI: You know, I think that defined him. It was…Yenching was his home. He…he really…I mean, he was the comptroller, but he already did so much to the university, and the last thing he wanted to see is everything he did destroyed. And…but he was that…I mean, he was so strong in the mind that he probably realistically thought he could take care of the Japanese himself, somehow.
B-ROLL: FOOTAGE OF JAPANESE PRISON CAMPS IN WORLD WAR 2
GATES VO: THIS CONFIDENCE WAS NOBLE, BUT MISPLACED.
MING’S GRANDFATHER YE-YE WAS ARRESTED AND THROWN INTO A PRISON CAMP––WHERE HE WAS REPEATEDLY TORTURED… AND SOON CONTRACTED TYPHUS.
YE-YE BARELY SURVIVED… BUT WHEN THE WAR ENDED, HE REGAINED HIS STRENGTH AND RETURNED TO HIS BELOVED UNIVERSITY TO RESUME HIS DUTIES.
THEN HE FACED A NEW THREAT.
GATES: This is from the Chicago Tribune April 8, 1947.
TSAI: (Reading) A typical example of communist-inspired propaganda was on the bulletin board of Yenching University.
B-ROLL: FOOTAGE OF COMMUNIST TAKE-OVER OF CHINA –– MAO, ETC.
GATES VO: ALMOST AS SOON AS THE JAPANESE WERE DEFEATED, CHINA ERUPTED INTO A CIVIL WAR BETWEEN COMMUNISTS AND WHAT WERE KNOWN AS NATIONALISTS.
THE NATIONALISTS WERE SUPPORTED BY THE UNITED STATES AND THEIR RANKS WERE FILLED WITH CHINA’S EMERGING MIDDLE CLASS.
THE COMMUNISTS WERE BACKED BY THE SOVIET UNION–AND PROMISED TO LIBERATE CHINA’S ENORMOUS NUMBERS OF IMPOVERISHED PEASANTS.
THE CONFLICT BETWEEN THE TWO GROUPS HAD BEEN EVOLVING SINCE THE EARLY 20TH CENTURY. NOW WAR CONSUMED THE ENTIRE COUNTRY–A WAR THAT WAS ULTIMATELY WON BY THE COMMUNISTS.
IN THE WAKE OF THEIR VICTORY, CHINA’S NEW LEADER–MAO ZEDONG– MOVED TO CONSOLIDATE HIS POWER.
HE AUTHORIZED THE EXECUTION OF ANYONE WITH TIES TO THE NATIONALISTS.
LANDOWNERS, BUSINESSMEN, AND INTELLECTUALS WERE KILLED IN DROVES.
THIS KIND OF VIOLENCE WOULD MARK COMMUNIST RULE IN CHINA FOR THE REST OF MAO’S LIFE.
IT WOULD CULMINATE IN THE INFAMOUS CULTURAL REVOLUTION, WHICH CLAIMED TENS OF MILLIONS OF VICTIMS…AND IT PLACED MING’S GRANDFATHER–A PROMINENT INTELLECTUAL–IN TERRIBLE DANGER.
FORTUNATELY, HE SAW IT COMING.
TSAI: They knew early on, when these rumors started coming, that they would be targeted. And my grandfather fled immediately. He knew.
GATES: Um hmm.
TSAI: A lot of his friends that stayed were killed.
GATES: Hmm.
TSAI: Just because they were “threats to the government.” And he absolutely would have been killed. People don’t realize the simple fact, more people were killed during the Cultural Revolution than the Holocaust.
GATES: Um-hum.
TSAI: Both are horrific. Obviously, the way the Holocaust was done was even more horrific with the gas chambers and whatnot. But more millions were killed over a longer period of time. The reasons are equally stupid. One because you’re Jewish, one because you’re a thinker. I mean, both are just horrific.
GATES VO: MING’S GRANDFATHER SPENT THREE YEARS RUNNING FROM THE COMMUNISTS… FLEEING FROM BEIJING–TO SHANGHAI–TO GUANGO, THEN TO MACAU–UNTIL HE FINALLY REACHED NATIONALIST-CONTROLLED TAIWAN IN 1951.
HE WAS LUCKY JUST TO BE ALIVE.
BUT FREEDOM CAME AT A COST. HE AND HIS WIFE HAD LEFT BEHIND ALMOST EVERYTHING THEY OWNED. SO THEY HAD TO REBUILD THEIR LIVES FROM SCRATCH––FIRST IN TAIWAN AND THEN IN THE UNITED STATES.
MING’S GRANDFATHER WOULD BE FOREVER MARKED BY THE EXPERIENCE…
TSAI: Ye-ye was so frugal and cheap. Look, he lived through a few wars, right?
GATES: Yeah, sure.
TSAI: He was in prison in Japan. And so on the hottest Dayton, Ohio summer days––your 95 to 100 percent humidity––Nainai, my grandma, would call my dad and says, in Chinese, you know, He turned off the air conditioning again.
GATES: (Laughs).
TSAI: Right? Because he wanted to save money.
GATES: Yeah, of course.
TSAI: So then Dad would have to drive there and like, Ye-ye, you cannot turn this off, and tried to explain, engineering-wise, that it cost more energy to turn it on and off.
GATES: That’s true.
TSAI: …and blah, blah, blah. He’d be like, Yeah, yeah, yeah. As soon as he’d leave, turn it back off.
GATES: (Laughs).
TSAI: And they had plenty of money. They’re not rich, but they had plenty of money for electricity. But it was the mindset.
GATES VO: WE’D BEEN ABLE TO TAKE MING TSAI BACK TO CHINA WITH HIS PATERNAL GRANDPARENTS WHO FLED THE COMMUNIST REVOLUTION.
TO GO BACK FURTHER IN TIME, WE TURNED TO A VERY RARE DOCUMENT.
WHEN MING’S GRANDFATHER LEFT CHINA, THERE WAS ONE OBJECT HE TOOK WITH HIM: A BOOK TRACING THE FAMILY’S GENEALOGY BACK TO THE YEAR 891 AD.
IT’S A TREASURE IN THE TSAI FAMILY.
BUT UNFORTUNATELY FOR MING, THE BOOK IS SIMPLY ORAL HISTORY, SET DOWN BY HIS ANCESTORS.
THERE HAS BEEN NO WAY TO KNOW IF IT’S TRUE, UNTIL NOW.
WE SENT RESEARCHERS TO CHINA TO TRY TO CONFIRM THE TSAI FAMILY GENEALOGY.
IT WAS A LONGSHOT.
THE COMMUNISTS HAD ORDERED THAT ALL GENEALOGICAL RECORDS BE DESTROYED IN AN EFFORT TO BREAK DOWN FAMILY STRUCTURES. THIS WAS, IN FACT, A FUNDAMENTAL PART OF THE CULTURAL REVOLUTION.
BUT IN SOME CASES, STONE-CARVED TABLETS––KNOWN AS STELES––HAVE SURVIVED.
BEFORE COMMUNISM, THE CHINESE LANDSCAPE WAS DOTTED WITH HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS OF THESE STELES.
IN MING’S HOMETOWN, ONLY ONE REMAINED STANDING.
GATES: Our researcher kept asking around and someone told her that of all of the family shrines that had existed before the Cultural Revolution, there was only one that remained standing. Can you imagine that? I mean of all these thousands…
TSAI: That’s crazy.
GATES: …just one. Could you please turn the page? Can you read the transcribed name taken from this stele?
TSAI: (Reading) Tsai Ying.
GATES: Do you know who Tsai Ying is?
TSAI: That’s…that’s the same last name.
GATES: Tsai Ying is your 36th great-grandfather.
TSAI: You’re kidding me.
GATES: The one shrine that survived is your family’s shrine.
TSAI: Come on.
GATES: That’s it, baby.
TSAI: I just got goose bumps. Wow. That’s crazy. That’s unbelievable. That is unbelievable.
GATES VO: THE STELE CONFIRMED MING’S FAMILY HISTORY TO THE LETTER… IT DOCUMENTED HIS ANCESTRY BACK TO 891 AD––AND BEYOND.
GATES: That is your family stele that miraculously survived. And what’s the odds Ming?
TSAI: I’m just…I’m so proud. That’s amazing.
GATES VO: BUT, FOR MING, THE BIGGEST SURPRISE WAS YET TO COME…
HIS FAMILY’S STELE LED OUR RESEARCHER TO RECORDS IN THE SHANGHAI LIBRARY—RECORDS THAT ALLOWED US TO CONSTRUCT A TSAI FAMILY TREE THAT STRETCHED BACK NINETY GENERATIONS!
IT WAS THE LARGEST FAMILY TREE THAT WE’VE EVER CONSTRUCTED.
AND IT CONNECTED MING TO A LEGENDARY FIGURE IN CHINESE HISTORY: HUANG DI––ONE OF CHINA’S FIRST FIVE EMPERORS—OFTEN CITED IN FOLKLORE AS THE FATHER OF THE CHINESE LANGUAGE.
TSAI: Huang Di is in the lineage…?
GATES: Huang Di. Who lived around the 27th century BC. Good God. Amazing.
TSAI: Wow. I’m practically speechless, which is rare…this is…this is life changing.
GATES: It blew our mind. (Laughs)
TSAI: It’s just…it’s incredible. It’s unbelievable, right?
GATES VO: THE RECORD SKIPS SEVERAL GENERATIONS SO PRECISE GENEALOGY IS IMPOSSIBLE HERE. BUT HUANG DI IS ROUGHLY MING’S 116th GREAT-GRANDFATHER–AND JUST ONE OF THE HUNDREDS OF NEW ANCESTORS THAT WE WERE ABLE TO NAME FOR HIM.
TSAI: It’s just so fascinating to see and to learn that…I mean, again, I was always proud to be Chinese. I knew I had good family history of 34 generations. Uh, to triple that basically and go back to Huang Di, you know, one of the original Five Emperors, is just mind blowing. But it’s so…it’s already set in motion, in my head: What did he eat? What did they all eat? How did they eat? Um, that…that’s…that’s almost like an immediate new quest, because there was definitely food tied into every one of those Tsais.
