484. Interview with the author

What inspired you to write the third of the Tiger Saga series? 

At the end of Wings of a Flying Tiger, I left a small window of opportunity to bring back Jasmine Bai. I loved this character so much that I wanted to write more of her story. However, I couldn’t do it. I knew her life wouldn’t be easy. I’ve already given her so much trouble that I didn’t have the heart to hurt her any further. 

On June 29, 2019, Greg Alexander attended my presentation at Sedona Public Library, bringing in his father’s flight jacket. His father, Ed Alexander, had fought the Japanese in WWII in China as a pilot, just like my hero, Danny Hardy. 

Greg thanked me for writing books about American heroes. Two days later, he finished reading Wings of a Flying Tiger. “My eyes blurred with tears… You reached me, touched me in a way I haven’t felt for ages…” Before sleep, he asked his father, who passed away many years ago, to give him permission to share the jacket with me, and he woke up the next day by the tapping of a pure yellow bird on his window.

Someone offered to buy the jacket for $5000; he didn’t sell. A WWII museum asked him to donate; he didn’t donate. His son wanted to have it; Greg didn’t give it to his son. 

Yet, he gave it to me. 

Greg told me the reason: 

The similarity between Danny Hardy and his father is striking: Both were shot down in southern China and lost their best friends during the mission. Both had leg injuries and malaria. Both were rescued by Chinese villagers, who treated them with herbal medicines and sheltered them for several months while the Japanese soldiers searched for them.

The flight jacket played a vital role in Wings of a Flying Tiger—a Blood Chit was sewed to the back of the jacket. In Chinese, it reads: “This foreigner has come to China to help in the war effort. Soldiers and civilians, one and all, should protect him.” Jasmine Bai realized that Danny Hardy was an American pilot because of the Blood Chit.

Since he promised his mother that he would keep the jacket in the family, Greg asked me to be his sister. So, on July 4, 2019, I became the little sister of a Flying Tiger’s son. I’m part of a Flying Tiger’s family. 

I wrote the books because the Flying Tigers’ stories touched me. I wanted to thank them for their bravery and sacrifice. I have never imagined that one day a Flying Tiger and his son would walk into my life and touch me in such a profound way.

This heartwarming event inspired me so much that I started writing the third of the Tiger Saga series. Even though Danny Hardy is gone, his fighting spirit lives on through Jasmine Bai and the next generation. 

Is any character in your novel based on a historical figure?

In December 1936, Chiang Kai-shek, the leader of the Nationalist government, was detained by his subordinates in Xi’an. Generals Zhang Xueliang and General Yang Hucheng held him captive until he agreed to an alliance between the Nationalists and the Communists. After the Xi’an Incident, the two parties formed a united front to counter the Japanese invasion. But later, General Zhang was detained and spent over fifty years under house arrest, first in Mainland China and then in Taiwan. 

General Yang was arrested, along with his wife, children, and some of his staff members. He remained in prison for twelve years until Chiang Kai-shek ordered him executed in September 1949, shortly before the Communists took over the Mainland. 

Song Qigun was General Yang’s secretary. As a member of the Communist Party, he was secretly sent to the Nationalist Army. After Xi’an Incident, he was one of the staff members arrested by the Nationalist Secret Police. His wife, Xu Linxia, and his son, Song Zhenshong, were imprisoned with him. Leng Xue and Shen Shen in my book were based on them. 

Song Zhengshong, nicknamed Sen Sen, was only eight months old when he went to jail with his parents. On September 6, 1949, he was butchered by the Nationalist Secret Police in Chungking at age eight, and he became the youngest Revolutionary Martyr bestowed by the Communist Party. He was a minor character in a historical novel Red Crag, but he left such a long-lasting impression that I brought him back in my book. 

On November 28, 1949, the Nationalist Secret Police carried out a massacre in jail in Chungking, shooting prisoners with machine guns, and over two hundred people were slaughtered. Yang Qindian was a jailer who participated in the killing of the eight-year-old boy, Song Zhengshong. Feeling remorseful and awakened by humanity, he opened the doors and set nineteen detainees free, including Luo Guangbin, one of the two authors of Red Crag. During the Cultural Revolution, Yang Qindian was labeled as a Nationalist spy and sentenced to twenty years in prison. Tan Yin, in my novel, was partly created because of him. 

Red Crag is a Chinese novel published in 1961. It was set in Chungking during the Chinese Civil War in 1949 and based partly on the experiences of its authors Luo Guangbin and Yang Yiyan—both were imprisoned by the Nationalist Secret Police. This novel has played a critical role in the heroism culture of that era. As a kid growing up during that time, I was inevitably influenced by the story. 

During the Cultural Revolution, Red Crag was labeled as a Counter-revolutionary book, and both authors were wrongfully accused as Traitors. After enduring public humiliation and physical persecution, on February 10, 1967, Luo Guangbin committed suicide by jumping off a tall building. In 1978, like my character Li Ming and countless other cases, Mr. Luo was posthumously “rehabilitated,” and his name was cleared. The Cultural Revolution was a crazy time, and many tragedies like this have happened. 

The political movements you described in the book are devastating and incredible. Are they true? Did your family suffer from them? 

 Yes, they are true. From 1949 to 1976, there have been two dozen campaigns launched by the Communist Party in Mainland China, some of which had enormous negative impacts, resulting in extreme terror and millions of deaths. While I wrote the book, I felt sorry for my parents and grandparents, who went through all those tough times.  

My grandmother, Yuan Changying, was the first Chinese woman to receive a master’s degree in the UK, and she became a famous writer and a professor at Wuhan University. During the Anti-Rightist Movement in 1957, she was wrongfully accused as a Counter-revolutionary Rightist and fired from her job. Allegedly, she’d criticized the Party in the Hundred Flowers Campaign the previous year, during which the Communist Party encouraged citizens to express their opinions of the government and its ideology. Like a minor character in my novel, my grandma only expressed her views privately to her friend, who gave her up under pressure to save his own skin. During the Cultural Revolution, she was kicked out of her university housing and sent back to her hometown, a remote rural village hundreds of miles away. She died there alone. 

My aunt, Yang Jingyuan, received her master’s degree from the University of Michigan in 1948 and became a famous translator. She translated Peter Pan, Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights, and other classics into Chinese. Eager to help build the new China, she returned to the Mainland at the end of the Chinese Civil War. During the Anti-Rightist Movement, she was also wrongfully accused as a Counter-revolutionary Rightist and sent to a labor camp for many years.

As professors, my parents also had tough times during the Cultural Revolution. My father, Yang Hongyuan, spent several years in a labor camp while my mother, Zhou Chang, took care of my sister and me, who were little kids. My father was allowed to come back home only once a year. I remember him bringing home eggs and peanuts, which were precious since food was limited by ration coupons. To this day, I still can’t imagine how he stood on a bumpy bus or the back of a truck for seven hours, holding a basket full of eggs and trying to make sure the eggs would be intact. 

Like a character in my novel, my friend’s father said that Chairman Mao was just a human being. He said the slogan ‘Long live Chairman Mao’ wasn’t logical, and Chairman Mao would die one day like everybody else. Because of this comment, he was sent to prison. Unable to handle the mental and physical torment, he killed himself there. 

Even I, a little girl during the Cultural Revolution, felt the oppressive atmosphere. Shao Xian Dui, the Young Pioneers of China, is a mass youth organization for children aged six to fourteen, and each member wears a red scarf. Having the red scarf was, and still is, a symbol of being a good kid. Most of my classmates joined Shao Xian Dui in the first grade, but I wasn’t accepted until the third grade, simply because my grandma was a Counter-revolutionary Rightist.

One day when I was in the first grade, several school officials showed up in our classroom. They made us write several sentences and sign our names and then took the papers away. A couple of days later, a boy was kicked out of school. Rumor had it that he wrote “Counter-revolutionary” slogans. Why would a seven-year-old boy write such a thing was beyond me and was never explained. Things like these affected me tremendously, and I learned to be extremely careful. I was shy and fearful, partly because of the environment I grew up in. 

Is it true that after stopping it for ten years, Mainland China resumed the College Entrance Exam in 1977? 

 Yes, it is true. 

In 1966, the Cultural Revolution swept the nation, and the college examination was suspended. For ten years, normal learning at schools was interrupted, and all the universities were closed as students were mobilized to participate in the revolution, and professors were publicly humiliated. Since 1968, following Chairman Mao’s instruction, millions of young people were sent to the countryside to be “reeducated” by peasants.

After the Cultural Revolution, Deng Xiaoping, the paramount leader of the People’s Republic of China, decided to tackle the problems in the education system, and the College Entrance Exam resumed in 1977. 

One of my friends passed the exam in 1977. But like Little Tiger in my novel, he wasn’t accepted by any university—he failed at zheng shen—political background check, simply because his father was wrongfully accused as a Counter-revolutionary Rightist. He wrote a letter to Mr. Deng Xiaoping. The staff in Deng’s office took his case seriously, and the following year, a prestigious university accepted him.

In 1979, I passed the College Entrance Exam and became a student at Wuhan University. It is hard to imagine what my life would have become without this life-changing opportunity.

Check my website https://www.irisyang-author.com/ for more information about my books, interviews, and presentations.