“Which country this time?” I asked.

“Japan. They claimed that one of their foot soldiers was missing during the morning roll call,” Mother said.

“Just one?”

“I doubt if there were any.”

“What does it have to do with us?”

“They don’t need justification or explanation. They just launched a search with columns of cavalry, armored cars and a whole army of foot soldiers.”

“Did we do anything?”

“Our border guard tried to stop them.”

“Did that work?”

“No, that gave them another justification to send their marines to attack the entire China coast.”

“All for just one missing soldier?”

“One or none, we are fighting back this time.”

Could China match the Japanese in arms and force? Before long, the Chinese capitol, Nanking, capitulated. For shock and awe, the Japanese went on a non-stop slaughtering and raping spree of the defenseless residents for days to celebrate. Millions were massacred. Soon it came upon us in Wuhan. Bombs fell. We spent most of our days in air raid shelters. But they were only good for shrapnel, not bombs.

Wuhan was located in the center of eastern China, upstream of Nanking and Shanghai and downstream of Chungking on the Yangtze River. It was the center of the steel industry and Weaponry and the hub of communication. Two main railroads, the Beiping-Hankow RR and the Guangdong-Hankow RR, had their terminals in Wuhan. My father was the general manager of the latter. As soon as the war broke out, my father directed all his trains to haul soldiers from Guangdong and Guangxi provinces to the front in the north. The returning trains carried wounded soldiers from the front. Mother turned our house into a field hospital. Bamboo awnings were erected over our garden and tennis court to serve as hospital wards. City folks swarmed the market to stock up food. Those who could afford more, scrambled for boats going up the Yangtze River into interior China.

It did not take long for the Japanese army to reach Wuhan. While my father was trying to keep the train running to the last minute to evacuate whatever equipment and refugees he could out of Wuhan, Mother took us kids on a run.

At first, we were able to keep one step ahead of the advancing Japanese troops. When the last city on the coast fell into Japanese hands, we headed inland for Guilin. On the 8th of December in 1941, Japan launched an attack on all the colonies and concessions occupied by the Western countries throughout the Pacific region. We lost contact with my sister in Hong Kong and heard no news of my father in Haiphong, Annam (now Vietnam). With a teacher’s salary, Mother could no longer support a family of four. My older brother, Ted, and I were taken in by a government school in Chungking for stranded overseas students. It took us a whole month hitchhiking on various trucks to travel the 800 km between Guilin and Chungking, A few months later Guilin fell. We were completely cut off from our family. 

The Japanese troops kept on advancing and pushing forward on all fronts. It took them three years to take all the Western colonies in Southeast Asia. On the China front, they took Dushan, China’s last defense of its Interior. From there the Japanese tanks could roll into China’s war-time capital, Chungking, in just weeks or even days.

Ted and I quit school and joined the army. I just turned eighteen.

Three days after we were inducted in Chengdu, we were flown over the eastern Himalayas, known as the Hump, to Doom Dooma in India to join the Chinese force in the unified China-Burma-India campaign (CBI) against the Japanese invasion. The combined CBI force was under the command of a Chinese-speaking American general, Joseph Stilwell. From there we were transported on cattle trains and army trucks to Burma for combat training in jungle warfare.

“Welcome to Myitkyina!” an officer roared at the new recruits. “You have just made history. You are the first soldiers in China who can read and write.”

Was he ridiculing us?

“Before you come,” he continued. “No soldier in the entire Chinese history could read his own name pinned on his chest. Many of them didn’t even have names before they were conscripted from their peasantry. They were known as Wang Pot-face and Li Split-lip. But they are good fighters. After the American force failed to take Myitkyina, Gen. Stilwell sent in the Chinese soldiers. They were able to drive the elite Japanese army out. No other Chinese soldiers have ever done that before. That was not all. When they first arrived in Burma from China, with just 1000 of them in straw sandals, they broke through a 7000-men strong Japanese Division and rescued a British Division under siege at Yenangyaung. When the Japanese cut off all their escape routes, they climbed over a 10,000-foot high and uninhabited mountain to India. I have picked the best fighting Wang Pot-face and Li Split-lip as your trainers. Now let’s see if you can fight as well as they six weeks from now.”

Later we found out that the officer who addressed us was Gen. Sun Li-Ren, the commander of the Chinese New First Army we belonged to. He had personally led Wang Pot-face and Li Split-lip in all those battles.

Myitkyina, Yenangyaung, Wild mountain, Wang Pot-face,... I had no idea what he was talking about. What did I care? I came to fight the Japanese. I looked around. I could not see any people or signs of civilization. All I saw was a thick growth of bushes and trees. At night it howled in a weird sound of the wild. Is Myitkyina a city, a village or a jungle?

These Wang Pot-face and Li Split-lip turned out also to be good builders. After the General’s pep talk, they led us clearing out a plot for camp and used whatever we had chopped down to build barracks and latrine. A barrack consisted of a thatched roof supported by four posts. Latrine was deep holes in the ground that we could fill up when we left. Inside the barrack we built two rows of platforms, each slept seven next to each other like sardine in a can. 

The next morning, we were wakened by the howling of a bugle before daybreak. We were given three minutes to fold our blankets as square as bricks, get dressed and fall in for a morning run. After the run, breakfast was served, rice and pork-and-bean out of cans. Training started immediately. Crawling, climbing, more running and target shooting in the entire morning. After another rice and pork-and-bean lunch, we donned full combat gears to play hide and seek in the jungle with blank bullets. Hell ended finally in late afternoon in the Irrawaddy River for bathing and clothes washing. It was as sweet as the Garden of Eden. Rice and pork-and-bean again for dinner. The menu remained the same throughout our training. Before taps, we had to clean our weapons and marched while singing resistance songs. Someone fell while marching. “Dead old peasant!” the sergeant cried out. “Go run around the camp five times. That will wake you up!”

Heroic action was discouraged. We were told it could jeopardize the security of the entire company. Instead we were taught to lie low, hide, sneak, communicate in silence and shoot only if we were sure to get an enemy on our single shot manually loading rifle.

“Why can’t we get the Tommy Guns like in the movies?” we asked.

“They are for the American gangsters,” our sergeant said. “They have chicken hearts and need the sound to boost up their courage. Single shot rifles are for sharpshooters. You cannot miss your target. If you do, you will become a target for the enemy.” 

The only automatic weapon we had in the squad was an old Czech light machine gun carried by two tallest guys at the head of the squad. The only long distance weapon was a 60mm mortar carried by two shortest at the end of the squad.

The torture continued. We could not see the end of it.

Then one day, all hell broke loose. We were ordered to march continuously for a day and a night. We arrived at the outskirts of Bhamo, a town south of Myitkyina. We could not see anything beyond the jungle. But we could hear intense firing at a distance. Our order was to clear all possible ambushes in the jungles while the 38th Division was mounting an attack on the city. Occasionally an enemy mortar bomb would explode nearby, sending all of us face down on the ground. Lie low became the golden rule of the jungle. At the very first explosion, I lost all my senses. Ai Wen Yi, the 13-year-old kid in our squad, broke out crying like a baby. He pooped in his pants. As the second explosion took place, my senses returned. I tried to figure out where it had come from. On the third explosion, I hit back blind with the 60mm mortar I was in charge of. I had no way to tell what it had hit. The jungle was so thick that we could not see a single enemy, just snakes, leeches and mosquitoes.

We took Bhamo. But being on the flank we did not see a single Jap during the entire time. However, we had suffered quite a few casualties from their bombardment.

Next destination, Lashio. I swore, this time I would get as many of those bastards as I could before they got me.

But in the army, one never knew what was the next order. Instead of marching toward Lashio, we were flown back to China.

Destination Guangzhou.

The American C46s dropped us somewhere in Guangxi Province. From there we marched to a river where some barges were waiting for us. We floated down the river on them as far as the boatmen agreed to go. We landed on a no man’s land, nominally under Japanese occupation but populated by Chinese guerillas. We could run into either. However, we met none but water buffalos. Just as we spread out into attacking formation, Damn it! Those bastards surrendered.

Cowards!

We entered the city on foot firing no shots, taking no prisoners, meeting no resistance, seeing no celebration,… just like regular marching in a drill. On the sidewalks, there were kits staring at our leather boots and some Japanese soldiers walking freely and watching us. Who were the victors anyway?

       When the Japanese in Guangzhou surrendered, they were not treated as prisoners of war. They were ordered to carry out duties such as garbage collection, street sweeping, maintenance of all public works and truck service. In exchange, they would be allowed to stay in their barracks and to walk freely on city streets. They were ordered to salute all Chinese soldiers regardless of their ranks.

       We set camp at the former Sun Yat-Sen University campus in Shipai. One day, as a few of us ventured out into the city, we saw at a distance a Jap walking toward us. The bastard walked just like a Jap, aloof as if he still occupied the city. Blood rushed to my head.

       “Did you see that Jap?” I said to my friends. “Let’s pretend not to have seen him. I am going to teach the bastard a lesson.”

       We kept walking while telling jokes and laughing like drunken Japs. Just as I expected, the bastard passed us without saluting.

I roared out in Japanese the insult these bastards used to yell at Chinese,

“Baga Yalu!” 

The bastard halted and quickly snapped his heels together. He raised a shaking hand to his eyebrow. Too late, my hand had already reached that bearded face. The slap knocked his glasses to the tip of his nose and his canoe-shaped hat onto the ground. I looked him in the eyes. But I could not see that ferocious, cruel and defiant animal that I had been chasing in the Burmese jungle and failed to see one. Instead, I saw an old man with an unshaven face. His beard was speckled-white.

Suddenly I felt like a hyena, who howled and laughed at the weaker prey and, when cornered by a stronger predator, could only show its teeth.

“These animals have no place in the Chinese army.” I heard Gen. Sun’s voice in my head.

Did he mean me?

Shame rushed to my face. I bent down and picked up the hat. I put it back on the Japanese soldier while his hand remained in the salute.

“What are you doing?” my friends asked in a tone of reprimand.

I hurriedly left them without saying anything. 

I asked myself, What am I doing here? The war is over.

Then the order came down.

       Destination Siping Jie.

       Where is Siping Jie? A street in Manchuria? Soldiers were not allowed to ask or to think. But they had definitely told us that the war had ended. Now they sent me to war again? Didn’t Japan surrender?

       “We are not going to fight the Japanese,” we were told. “We are going to fight the Communist?”

       “Colonialist?”

       “No, they are Chinese.”

       Like being hit by the first mortar in Bhamo, I froze and became numb. I joined the army to fight the Japanese, to take revenge for the Chinese, to get back the land they took from us. Yet I had not killed a single Japanese. Now I am going to kill Chinese? Am I not Chinese myself? Are there Wang Pot-face and Li Split-lip in the Communist army? 

On the night my unit was shipped out, I quietly slipped into the dark night of  the Guangzhou streets…

A stranger showed up at my door one day earlier this year.

       “I am Lai Wen-Fu,” said the man. He bowed and picked up my hand with both of his hands and shook emotionally. “Seeing you in person reinforced my faith in World Peace.”

       Then I recalled the letter I got several months ago.

Dear Prof. Chow:

I am Lai Wen-Fu. Lai Jun-Chen was my father. When he passed away, I went through his papers and old letters. I found I was reading about a person I could not recognize. I did not know my father. At home, he was a typical Chinese father. There was no communication between father and son except lectures and orders. After reading what he wrote and what his friends wrote to him, I had a strong urge to get to know him. Then I came upon the letters you wrote to him. I sensed that there was a close comradeship between you two. I wonder if I could pay you a visit.

Of the younger generation, Lai Wen-Fu 

       But what did his visit have to do with World Peace?

       I assumed he was referring to the wars in the Middle East and Ukraine. What a strange way of greeting! Before I could respond, Lai continued,

       “I’ve been waiting for this chance to ask you how you and my father met.”

“Well, it was 76 years ago. We met on air when I ran my boat onto the Dongsha reef in South China Sea. The only person I contacted was your father. He was in charge of the company’s sea-to-shore radio station. I had never met him before. The message I received from him was, Rescue is on its way. When I got back to Kaohsung, I was fired. All my friends thought I deserved it. Your father was the only person who stood up for me. He pleaded for leniency with the Port Captain on my behalf that I was under the threat of a typhoon. It fell on deaf ears. But we became friends.

Six years later when I attempted to cross the Pacific Ocean on a Chinese sailing junk, I was denied the sailing permit for not having a sea-to-shore radio. Your father gave me a set of discarded shortwave radio and taught me how to operate it in Morse Codes. Shortly after we got out to sea, we ran into a typhoon and lost steerage near Diaoyu Islet. It was your father again, who guided me on air in how to call for help. A few hours later, a cargo ship appeared on the horizon.”

       “See what I mean?” the young Lai said. “If two soldiers fighting on opposite sides in a war could meet on air and become good friends later, there is hope for the world to have lasting peace.”

       “Was your dad a soldier?”

       “During the Japanese invasion of China, he was drafted in Japan and sent to Northeast China.”

       That was more than 80 years ago! The scene of the battle of Bhamo suddenly came back to me vividly.

       “I was in Burma.”

       “Taiwan was under Japanese occupation at the time. If my father were drafted in Taiwan, he would have been sent to Burma. You two could have fought against each other in the same battles.”

       I did not know what to say. I just felt relieved that I had not killed any Japanese soldier in Burma, at least not any that I could see.

作者簡介：

Paul Chow本名周傳鈞，常用筆名“破橋”。1926年生於北京，其父周鐘岐於1920-1930年代先後任膠濟、平漢、粵漢鐵路副局長/經理，其母沈葆德為民國時期女性教育家。1937年日本進犯中國，正常的家庭生活就此中斷。1944年，剛滿18歲的周傳鈞與哥哥周傳基一同參軍抗日，赴緬加入新一軍。戰後從事出海及捕魚工作。1955年駕中國老式木製帆船橫渡太平洋，後於美國西北大學獲得物理學博士學位，此後從事大學物理、天文、電腦教學與顧問，並參與中國九年義務教育計畫中的教師培訓。1994年自加州州立大學北嶺校園退休後，從事寫作，出版了多部英文著作，並有中譯本。本文中關於抗日戰爭期間的家庭經歷於《沈葆德：用解放腳走路（Walking on Liberated Feet）》一書中有較詳細的記載。

   電動車與普通汽油車的不同是使用電力而非汽油，因而內燃機的所有零件都不再需要，電動車最主要的結構就只是電池、換流器和馬達。

公元1800年Volta發明了第一個電池後，愛迪生(Thomas Edison)繼而研發出更好的鉛酸電池，並得到專利。他又利用電池的直流電，發明了電燈泡等風靡一時的專利產品。愛迪生後來還把電池裝置在車上，成為最早期的電動車。不久，福特的Model T汽車上市，用汽油的內燃機成為主流，取代了愛迪生的電動車！早期電動車的致命傷是電池不可靠、不持久和電力不足。但今天的鋰電子電池，不僅十分穩定，電量也大幅增加，不但可以儲存數十千瓦小時（Kilo Watt Hour）的電力，而且還可以重複充電。目前電動車的主要瓶頸仍然是電池！因為電動車電池的行車里數還不夠高，電池用完後的充電時間依然太長，造成電動車所謂的行車焦慮感，而且废弃锂电池的处理，還是待解决的环保问题。这些都會讓很多人怯步不前。

換流器或整流器（Inverter)是電動車的主心骨和靈魂。開車時，電池的直流電要經過換流器轉換成交流電來驅動馬達。交流電的頻率決定馬達的行車速度，電壓和電流的大小則決定行車的加速力和載重力。因為電池儲存的是直流電，當電池所儲的電用完後，在充電的時候需要由換流器把普通的交流電轉換成直流電輸入電池。現在有些充電站已可以直接把直流電充入電池，就不用經過換流器了！

   電動車的馬達和我們平時用的電風扇或果汁機的馬達都是同一原理，只不過電動車的馬達比較大。由於馬達的轉軸直接帶動車軸，因此速度和動力的變化也大得多。在愛迪生時代，一開始是使用直流電的，後來他實驗室的一位工程師特斯拉(Nikola Tesla)和夥伴發展出交流電。特斯拉又發明了交流電馬達，並獲得專利，此後交流電馬達便成為標準設計！工程师特斯拉可说是交流電馬達的祖師爺！

   電動車的馬達多半是同步或感應馬達，利用磁電感應來轉動。換流器送過來電流的頻率和大小，決定馬達的速度和動力。電動車的設計比汽油車簡單太多，普通汽車的引擎、水箱、風扇、油箱，排氣管、火星塞等等都不再須要了，而且開車時沒有廢氣排出，有助環保。但電動車的行車里程還不夠長遠且價錢昂貴，若今後能發展出更輕更好更环保的電池，價錢也能更合理的話，電動車一定會更加普遍。

愛迪生創建電池，特斯拉發明馬達。

科學家攜手共進，電動車全力出發。

  希望不久的將來，由于特斯拉與愛迪生的完美結合，能締造出節能減碳更完美的环保未來！

註：千瓦小時（kilo Watt hour)簡稱kWh,是用電量或儲電量的單位。電動車的說明書都會講明電池的kWh，可以開多少哩。就像汽車說明油箱有幾加侖，一加侖可以開多少哩一樣。

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