Learning the Power of Leverage in a Time of Chaos

I was in Shanghai when I attended elementry school, junior high and high school. I don't remember when it started officially, but all I could remember during my scool years was the Culture Revolution. My family was considered one of Five Black Kinds since my grandfather was the business owner. By listening to adults' conversations, I learned that all of my immediate relatives were one of the Five Black Kinds. Although I was never told which of the Five Black Kinds they were assigned to.

It was probably at the beginning of the Culture Revolution, as I watched groups of Red Guards came to the neighborhood searching for anti-revolutionaries. The Red Guards were wearing green hats, green uniforms with belts on the waists and the red ribbons painted with yellow words "Red Guards" on the upper left arms.  So it was not hard to recognize them when they marched into the neighborhood loudly.

One early morning, I was awaken by the heavy door knocking from our back door.  As soon as my aunt opened the door, an army of Red Guards rushed into my house. There were about 20 of them. They were actually the employees from my grandfather's factory. They spent whole day in my house searching for the evidence of capitalism and anti-revelutionary. In the end, they put a forbidden seal to my father's bookshelf and took away all the valuable furnitures and jewelry with them.

From then on, the kids from our neighborhood started make fun of my brothers and I. For that reason, I spent most of my spare time playing Chinese chess with my brothers. Being the only girl in the family, I was only able to play by that time considered as the boy's game Chinese chess.

One day, after I beat my younger brother again on the Chess game, he decided to buy the Chinese Chess strategy book to improve his skill. He started to win after reading his Chess book. However, very soon I was able to figure out his new chess strategy and won again after playing with him a few times. So whenever I started to beat his newly learned strategy, he would get mad and went to buy another book to learn new chess strategy.

Hence, my chess skill was improving while playing chess with my younger brother. I was too lazy to read those books.  My brother bought about 70 Chinese chess bookls in order to beat me.  While most girls in the neighborhood were playing girls games, I spent most of my childhood play time playing Chinese chess.

One year at Junior high school, our school decided to add chess competition to the annual school athletic tournament. I volunteered to represent my class. There were about 30 classes and each class had about 50 students. To many people's surprise, I got the first place for the Chess competition. I just realized how good my chess skill was. Thanks to my brother who was trying to beat me all the times.

I played Chess during my childhood, because it was the only game available to me. I was probably at the age of 6 when I started to play. This was the first time that I experienced the power of leverage. In a time of chaos, I learned to become the Chinese Chess champion.