Feb 25 2008
Yang Bingsun 杨秉荪
Yang was the concert master of CNSO now living in Texas. After he came out of jail during the Cultural Revolution, his wife Wu Yili, a pianist who divorced him when he was sent to jail, moved back in with him again. As a gentleman, he couldn’t say no, but made it known that he’d rather live alone. He was assigned the apartment next to Auntie Jennie’s, the one Huang Manlu used to live. Huang went to HK in the mid 70s. Auntie Jennie’s son Steve was an up and coming and heir apparent at the time, Yang mentored him. Once they came back from a night out, both stopped by Auntie Jennie. Things perhaps didn’t go well, he wanted to retreat back to the apartment, so asked her for the key. She instead sat down and started going over the music sheet with Steve. Yang was pacing the room and getting agitated. We were in the middle didn’t know what to make of it, or telling which party to conced. Many people were annoyed at Wu, thinking she’s way too practical at divorcing him at the moment he most needed her.
Steve also took lessons from Sheng Zhongguo. Every year he would trek to Zhongguancun to buy a birthday cake for him: Guixiang cun (did I get the bakery’s name right here?) at Fuli Lo 福利楼 - Beijing was that dread at time, all the good French bakery or any decent bakery were gone. When I went to visit Yeye and Nainai, I’d buy the butterfly cookies from there too. They loved it. Now looking at it, large or small, I don’t even want to touch it, :).