Some Things Money Can't Fix

Right before WWII, Architect Billy Ming Sing Lee was born into one of the wealthiest families in China. The family company Da Ye Gongsi was in charge of printing the country's currency. (see post one.)

Billy had separate tutors for Math, English, Chinese and Confucian studies. “Rich people’s kids were frequently kidnapped. So I was tutored at home.” Unfortunately, disaster still wrapped its tentacles around the Lee family. 

Billy (on right) came down with Scarlet Fever

Young Billy came down with Scarlet Fever.  He survived the disease, but lost hearing in one ear. A famous doctor—Lee Gong-- operated on him to no avail. At the time (around 1937) there was not anything more to be done. “During the war, I was in occupied Shanghai. The medical wasn’t there. There was nobody to help. If you can’t hear, you can’t hear. That’s it.”

“When you are deaf, most people don’t know. They’ll call you stuck-up or stupid, because they’ll tell you something and you don't respond. They find you irritating sometimes.”

That was often the case with Billy’s mother. Because Billy couldn't hear well, he was slow at following the tutors (in fact, he fell behind two years academically), and slow to respond to his mother. She scolded him a lot.

Billy's Mother
“She’d give me the knuckles-on-the-head treatment."

"She'd give me the knuckles-on-the-head treatment. I hated her then. But, now I believe that she didn't realize the effect of my hearing difficulty. If I didn't respond properly, she thought I was defying her. Crack!

"My brother and sisters would stay at home around my mother, but I was always afraid of her. So I'd spend my time with servants in the kitchen. Sometimes I felt they were not treated reasonably by my mother. Just because they didn't have education, they were branded as 'useless,' 'not worthy.'"

Billy made friends with the cook, the chauffeur, every handyman.  

“I started appreciating and really loving the people who worked for us.”

(To Be Continued. Next: Father's Memorable Punishment)