Gus Lee - Chasing Hepburn: A Memoir of Shanghai, Hollywood, and a Chinese Familys Fight for Freedom

P RAISE FOR Chasing Hepburn

In writing his parents combined life stories, San Franciscoborn novelist Gus Lee perforce weaves a tapestry of Chinese history that went on before them, behind them, and around them. Its a huge tapestry, parti-colored, spanning a busy century that included the Taiping Rebellion, Chiang Kai-shek, Mao Zedong, the Rape of Nanking, and Gone with the Wind. Fashioning a panorama of such dimensions is no easy task.

San Francisco Chronicle

Lee has created a gripping and beautiful portrait of his ancestors and their powerful legacy. He calls Chasing Hepburn nonfiction, but it reads just as richly as any novel [a] powerful brew of historical detail and a mlange of Western and Eastern images.

Boston Globe

Laced with physical peril, political intrigue, and a host of key historical figures [Chasing Hepburn] is at once a gripping adventure and a tender recreation of the authors parents young lives and their elegant ancestral traditions.

Colorado Springs Independent

Chasing Hepburn will surely find its audience. Students of Chinese history, and especially those curious about Shanghai in the first three decades of the twentieth century (possibly the most fascinating metropolis ever), will find a book filled with detail and information.

The Washington Post Book World

[F]illed with heartbreak, regret, and remorse.

The New York Times Book Review

Chasing Hepburn is a memoir of staggering richness [a] marvelous account of a Chinese family in a startling historical context.

Richmond Times-Dispatch

[R]ich in detail: a uniquely personal perspective on one of the most fascinating and tumultuous periods in history.

Kirkus Reviews

Lees writing is a constant pleasure of vibrant detail and effective dialogue Lees most remarkable skill, however, is his ability to deftly move between the personalities of his familys intimate moments, and his observations of Chinese cultural history.

Publishers Weekly

Gus Lee brings to his first work of nonfiction the consummate storytelling skills which have always delighted us in his critically acclaimed novels. I promise that you will be captivated by this epic story of two families who epitomize all that is rich and varied in Chinese culture.

Ron Bass, screenwriter of The Joy Luck Club and Rain Man

BOOKS BY GUS LEE

China Boy (1991)
Honor and Duty (1994)
Tigers Tale (1996)
No Physical Evidence (1998)

Frontispiece photograph: Z EE Z EE , D A-TSIEN , E LINOR. Hongchiao Airport, Shanghai, 1930. Da-tsien has again refused to fly.

Copyright 2003 by Gus Lee

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

Published by Three Rivers Press, New York, New York.

Member of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc. www.randomhouse.com

THREE RIVERS PRESS and the Tugboat design are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.

Originally published in hardcover by Harmony Books, a division of Random House, Inc., in 2003

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Lee, Gus.

Chasing Hepburn: a memoir of Shanghai, Hollywood, and a Chinese familys fight for freedom / by Gus Lee.
1. Lee, Gus. 2. Novelists, American20th centuryBiography. 3. Hollywood (Los Angeles, Calif.)Biography. 4. Chinese AmericanBiography. 5. Shanghai (China)Biography. 6. FamilyChinaShanghai. I. Title.

PS3562.E3524 Z465 2002
813.54dc21 [B] 2002017285

eISBN: 978-0-307-55501-4

v3.1

To Mah-mee,
with love and faith and hope.

I BOW TO my mother, Tzu Da-tsien of Soochow, and to my father, Tsung-chi Lee of Yangchow.

I extend loving appreciation to my wonderful sistersElinor Lee Hause, Ying Lee and Dr. Ming Tzu. Thank you for raising me and for inspiring me with your strength and courage. My love to our familyLars, Cece and Jasmine Ai-wen Stenberg, Max and Sallie Kelley, Sara Ying Kelley and Dr. Mark Rounsaville, Anna Lagios and Eva Chrysanthe, and Robert and Maralyn Elliott, parents-in-law.

I offer deepest appreciation to our brave Shanghai cousinsLi Huo-son, Li Chin, and Li Lulu and our wonderful familyYuan Chung, Chen, Wang, Chien, Chan, Ying, Hai Peng, Shiao Peng and Chieh. Thank you for sharing your precious lives and priceless memories.

Heartfelt thanks go to Joe and Su-mi Tu, who shared their Shanghai memories as if I were one of their fortunate children. With deepest thanks to my siblings-of-the-heart, David Kai Tu and Kristl Tu, with appreciation for David letting me use his middle name in my books.

Writing is collaborative. I would have no career without my dear friend and agent, Jane Dystel, and the brilliant Miriam Goderich, of Jane Dystel Literary Management. I would have no final manuscript without Shaye Areheart, my incredible and insightful editor. I would have missed these writing opportunities without the historic and groundbreaking art of my beloved sister-in-heart, Amy Tan. I owe much to my other editorsGary Luke, Arnold Dolin, Ash Green and Leona Nevler. Thanks to Teryn Johnson and Lauren Dong for your help and your art.

As always, I salute from the heart the West Point Class of 1968 and members of Company A, Third Regiment, USCC.

I thank my Endur colleagues, who in many ways were part of this book: Frank Ramirez, Chris Kay, John Whitcomb, Rufus Nagel, Bob Skaggs, Alec Wynne, Adrian Foley, Skip Spensley, Buz Barclay, Mike Minor, Lt. Gen. Jim Ellis, Ret., and my mentors, Gen. H. Norman Schwarzkopf, Ret., and Col. Charlie Murray, Ret., and John Prosser.

For historical texture, I owe deep gratitude to my graduate advisor, Professor Emeritus Kwang-ching Liu, University of California at Davis, for his teaching, counsel and friendship. I relied upon his revelatory books and other wonderful authors: Jonathan Spence, Harrison E. Salisbury, John King Fairbank, Frederick Wakeman, Jr., Harriet Sergeant, Graham Peck, Anne Edwards, Stephen Becker and fine writers who still serve West PointEd Ruggero, Tom Carhart and Len Marella.

Thank you to Lee Mendelson of Mendelson Pictures, my film partner.

I owe gratitude to the First Presbyterian Churches of Colorado Springs and Burlingame. I thank my covenant brothers, with singular appreciation to Frank Ramirez. Your broad shoulders have guarded families and clans against wolves. Deep thanks to my first friend, Dr. Toussaint Streat, and to brethren Barry Shiller, Eric Becker, Bob Batchelder, Robin Dailey, Bill Helwig, Rob Dougherty, Bob Laird, David Croslin, Tom Baker, Ike Elliott, Steve Schibsted, Paul Benchener and Paul Watermulder, who, as I, know where all thanks are due.

Life is even more collaborative than writing. I am blessed in Diane and in our wonderful children, Jena, Eric and Jessica. You are my shinkan, heart and liver, and you are my loves. Is life not wonderful?