Heart and Soul: My grandfather, a lieutenant-general

Huang Zhen Wu, the writer's grandfather, was a high-ranking general in Chiang Kai-shek’s army. — Photo: Ronnie Tan

When I was a kid, I learned from my mother that my grandfather was a high-ranking general in Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek’s army.

I was too young to know the significance of his military history and knew very little about him or his military career.

Likewise, mum also knew little about him other than what she had been told by her mother. When she was an infant, she was brought to Malaya by my grandmother to be with her grandparents. She never knew her father or her older brother Hui Liang who stayed behind in China.

My grandfather subsequently remarried and had five children: Zhao Liang (Alex), Yu Liang (Sally), Xiao Liang (Fred), Zhong Liang (Al) and Wen Liang (Pearl).

My mum would meet up with her half-siblings in later years.The family fled to Taiwan when the communist forces under Mao Zedong defeated Chiang Kai-shek’s army and took control of China in 1948.