Ancestory Roots
Lai Zhou, Shandong Province, China Late
Nineteenth century.
We travel a hundred years back to the late
nineteenth century, the scene, Northwest China. A humble seaside
farming settlement on the southern side of the Bay of Jiao Zhou(膠州灣),
this is MaChui(麻渠村), Ye Xian (掖縣)Shandong Province, the hometown of
Sun Bao Shu (孫寶書- paternal grandfather's name and son of Sun Rui Lin
孫瑞麟).
It was around 1885, The young lad of 16/17
years, eager to eke a living, against the imperial decree of the Qing
government that was facing challenges both on the home front and from
the foreign powers, Sun Bao Shu like many other young men bravely
sails across the waters of the Bohai Sea and arrives in the City of
Da Lian. After a rough journey on the road which lasted months and
after he finally reaches his destination, Vladivostok (海嵾威), an
seaport in Siberia of Russia. Through honest hard work as a merchant,
trading in building materials. Sun Bao Shu finally had acquired much
wealth. It was the time that he decided to marry Yu (paternal
grandmother) from his hometown and started a family. It was in 1910,
Sun KweiChi (孫桂籍), the father of Sun Yu-li (孫宇立)was born in
Vladivostok.
Bolshevik Revolution broke out in 1917, Russia
was in turmoil. Meanwhile this was the time that opportunities
abounded in Harbin, Manchuria where many Chinese capitalists had set
up business in brewing, food and textiles. Now that his career had
stabilized, in 1917 the couple with there two sons and a daughter,
decided to move to Harbin. They bought a stretch of 3 story street
fronting shop houses (with a common courtyard at the back) in the
city center and settled into one of them.
It was a childless, affluent and friendly
Russian couple, JiaJia and WaWa staying a few doors away from JuJu's
house. WaWa liked the little toddler and always helped to take care
of her when the mother tied up at home. It was an afternoon, JuJu was
brought over and playing in the garden. All of a sudden, WaWa noticed
JuJu was nowhere to be found, she went around frantically search for
JuJu. In shock, she found the baby girl who had wandered and fallen
into a tub of water. It was providence that JuJu was discovered in
the nick of time as any later and the water would have drowned the
girl who would later become the mother of Sun Yu-li.
JuJu was just only two years old when her
mother Lee passed away due to a bout of unknown illness. After the
funerary rites were completed, her father, Zhang Ri Gao (張日高)arranged
for the coffin to be brought back to his hometown to be buried. He
decided to accompany the months long journey himself. Who is going to
look after JuJu? Sadly and reluctantly, he decided that it would be
best that Juju be raised by the Russian couple who had their arms
readily open and welcoming the new member to their family. A special
bond had already formed between WaWa and JuJu ever since that fateful
day when she saved JuJu from drowning.