I first heard that my father had been to India from my grandmother. Our family lived in Longshan New Village in the southern suburbs of Shanghai. This is a very elegant residential area. The three-story building with red bricks and tiles is surrounded by green trees and small gardens, which is quiet and beautiful. It's about two or three kilometers from Longhua Airport. Most of the people living in Xincun were employees of the 5703 factory at that time. The old employees were old people who worked in the Second Aviation Company before liberation, while the young ones were demobilized and graduated from technical schools.

Father is riding a British "Blue Order" bicycle. Although worn out, it is still strong. I remember sometimes when I was ill, he put me on the bumper and went to the factory health clinic in a villa one kilometer away. The villa was occupied by Americans before liberation. There is a granite grave in front of the airport, and the beautiful tombstone is engraved with English. I heard that this is the grave of an American tycoon.

I studied in the primary school affiliated to Factory 5703 for six years. A friend of mine has a father who is a factory director, a cadre who changed jobs in the south, and a child of a nearby farmer. In addition, the children of the "two airlines" who have been to India are the most. Sometimes friends brag to each other, and one of them says, "My father flew!" " "Another said," My father flew too! " The third immediately stunned the first two: "My father flies a plane!" " "Then the father, the small partner of the field leader, came up to everyone and said," What are you cows doing? " ? My father just flew to Beijing today! "At this time, everyone stopped talking, and their faces showed awe.

My father is a man of few words. As far as I can remember, he never told us about working and living in India. I just learned from my grandmother that India is very hot and I have to eat with my hands. Besides, they work with Americans in India. As for other details, I know nothing.

I remember when I was in college in the early 1980s, I asked my father to entrust a Hong Kong relative to buy two books, one was Selected Works of English Literature published by Oxford Press, and the other was World Atlas published by XX Press. Father used to look at the map of India carefully with a magnifying glass. Maybe he's looking for places he went when he was young. Unfortunately, I didn't think to ask him where he went and what he did there.

1996, when my father was hospitalized due to illness, he was able to declare the status of "returned overseas Chinese". My mother recorded the following information at the bedside: "1944 was admitted to China Airlines in Chongqing, and went to Kolkata, India in the same year, and worked as the generator group leader in the maintenance base of AVIC, and then transferred to the hydraulic group. I returned to China around May 1946 and worked in the AVIC maintenance base of Shanghai Longhua Airport. " My father was approved as "Returned Overseas Chinese" in March 1996, but I learned these things only this year from a piece of paper my mother found out from old things.

If I hadn't met an old man who had also been to India this Mid-Autumn Festival, I might never have known the details of my father's work in India.

June 2009