This book A Boy from China truthfully described events that happened in his life. It included so much ventures and so many characters. Sometimes it was very moving, and other times it was funny. It is indeed very interesting to read the whole book to find out how a country boy could be so successful to become the $240 Million Professor.

The first volume Escaping the Mainland described the suffering he had endured between the ages three and fifteen. When China was in the war with Japan and the civil war, he almost lost his life to illness and ill-intended deed by a neighbor. And in the middle of running away from the invaders, he was separated from his mother in a midway big city. His father was a military man, always away for the war. He had lived with his mother in a mud hut and eating meager food until he became a rice paddy fisherman, so he and his mother could eat fish, snails, and eels. When the war with Japan ended, they returned to Nanjing and found their home was a pile of rubbles. The peaceful time lasted two years, and then they had to run from the communists. In the darkness of the night, the mother and son escaped the city of Fu-Chow to board a junk to a troop carrier to Taiwan.