At the turn of the twentieth century, China was still in the hands of the imperial Qing Dynasty government. In 1911, the revolution led by Dr. Sun Yat-sen finally succeeded in overthrowing the corruptive Qing Dynasty, and the Republic of China was born. In subsequent decades, the Nationalist government was exhausted in fighting consecutively wars against the Chinese War Lords, the war against the Japanese aggression, and the civil war with the Chinese Communists. Chaotic situations in the nation had lasted for most of the twentieth century. My parents and my siblings of five lived our lives in that century. Although our family, except for my sister and her family, had fortunately escaped the unprecedented massive destruction, the associated social turbulence, and the political persecution by the Chinese government toward its citizens in the decades of the twentieth century, we were forced to leave mainland China. Our parents and many people in their generation lived the rest of their lives overseas like drifting leaves in unfamiliar societies with nostalgia. My parents passed away in Taipei, Taiwan and in Manhattan, Kansas in the 1970's. What they wished and longed for was simply the togetherness of family members, and was never achieved in their lives. Because of the age differences between our siblings, the experiences of our lives were quite different. We each managed to find a way to make a living, strive for the best and we all survived under various circumstances during the turbulent times. This book "Drifting Roots" describes the true family stories of an ordinary Chinese immigrant. Just because of its ordinary nature, these stories would certainly not be able to make their way to the history books. However, these true family stories which fully reflect the complicated historical events of our times are surely worth writing down and leaving them to our children and future generations in America!
About the Author: Y. P. Lu received his Mechanical Engineering degrees from the National Taiwan University in Taipei, Taiwan in 1958, and from the University of Houston in Houston, Texas in 1964 and 1967. After receiving his doctorate in Mechanical Engineering, he spent his entire professional career at the David Taylor Research Center in Annapolis, Maryland as an engineer / scientist / technical manager until he retired in 1995. In the intervening years, he also taught at different times at the University of Maryland, the United States Naval Academy, the Catholic University of America, the National Taiwan University, and the National Taiwan Ocean University. He authored two books (both in English): a graduate level technical book entitled "Vibration Damping of Structural Elements" (1995) and a book entitled "Drifting Roots" (2012). While studying at the National Taiwan University in the mid 1950's, he was the captain of the University's varsity basketball team. He was also a member of Lan Sheng, a rather famous basketball team on the island of Taiwan in the 1950's. He and his wife Cecilia currently reside in Maryland.