Tsuyin Soong was born in January 1933 in Hunan Province, China. He has two brothers and two sisters. He remembers the United States entering the war in 1941. He was living in Chongqing, China, the wartime capital of China during World War 2. He was there until 1945. After the war ended in August 1945, he was able to return to his hometown which had been occupied by the Japanese. He and his family then moved to Shanghai. After 1945, he experienced the conflict between the communists and nationalists. In 1949, they flew to Taiwan where he graduated from high school before coming to the United States. He was born along the Yellow River in the interior of China. His father was an engineer on the railroads, which caused them to move quite a bit. In 1937, they were in the eastern part of the country when the Japanese invasion began. They were evacuated to Chongqing in the western part of the country. Soong was very young but says they were very lucky as they had their own truck. He recalls they were somehow able to get on a seaplane to fly to Shanghai. They had stayed in Chongqing for eight years. The constant bombing of China by Japan was suffering to him. The planes would bomb the city daily. The city was not a military target really. There was no industry or manufacturing, just government and schools. There were also no hiding places so the Chinese civilians carved small, cave-like structures into the hills in their yards. It was very dangerous, and many people would suffocate from them being too crowded. The bombs were fire bombs which caused a lot of fear. He remembers running towards the caves. His family finally moved to the country to escape the bombing. They built their own house and dug the back of it into the hillside. The bombing raids were not massive, only five to ten planes at a time, but China had no air force to counter them. After 1941, the United States military trained some Chinese to fly and furnished China with aircraft. The P-51 [Annotator's Note: North American P-51 Mustang fighter aircraft] would become his favorite aircraft used by the Chinese Air Force.

Tsuyin Soong notes that the Burma Road [Annotator's Note: a road linking Burma with southwest China built in 1937 and 1938] was the only road to use to bring supplies into China. The coast was occupied by the Japanese so there was no way in there. The British were fighting the Japanese in Burma and were able to get some supplies to China. The only other way was by Americans via aircraft. The Americans supplied P-47s [Annotator's Note: Republic P-47 Thunderbolt fighter aircraft] to them this way. One of Soong's cousins was in the Chinese Air Force and was trained by the American military in Dayton, Ohio. He flew a P-51 [Annotator's Note: North American P-51 Mustang fighter aircraft] back to China through India. [Annotator's Note: The interviewer backs up in the story.] The Chinese government made a large effort to move industry from the occupied parts to the interior parts of the country. There were very few highways. People could only walk or take a boat. Even if families made the decision to leave, it was very difficult to do so. Government workers, youth and students were able to make the move. The soldiers' families did as well. Soong's family only took their clothes as there was not enough room for belongings. The most important thing is your life. There was no line of moving trucks. The goal was just to get away from the Japanese. [Annotator's Note: The interviewer asks if he took any special toys.] Soong had a younger brother and they had to rush into a cave shelter together. His little brother fell and was injured internally. They had to stay inside the cave for four or five hours. He recalls his parents rushing his brother to the hospital, where he later died. This is Soong's worst tragedy. He does not blame the air raid or the Japanese but the war created such miserable situations that caused so much suffering that it remains his biggest loss to this day.

Tsuyin Soong did not encounter any Japanese soldiers until after the war ended. There were a lot of Japanese soldiers in the country after the surrender. His family went back to their old home. The Japanese soldiers were still in uniforms but with no rank. People in China would have to buy hot water for tea. Soong recalls seeing a Japanese soldier trying to buy hot water. It was not in confrontation, he had no fear. Very few soldiers were imprisoned or kept in China after the war. Perhaps it was due to the Chinese civil war. The Japanese did surrender unconditionally and were not harmed in the process. Soong does not call it kindness but a matter of fact that the Japanese should be very thankful for this. This is something that did not happen in modern history on that scale. Soong does not like that the Japanese government has never apologized to China for World War 2, unlike the Germans and Italians. This is especially difficult considering that the Japanese attacked China for economic reasons and for land, much the same rationale the Germans used to attack Russia.

Tsuyin Soong did not encounter any Japanese soldiers until after the war ended. When he first saw them, he pitied them. He saw a Japanese soldier looking for water. Soong did not fear nor hate him but was very curious about the situation overall. He was just a man and not somebody superior to him. Soong feels very fortunate that his father was an engineer for the national government and always had work. Soong always had a house and got to go to school. Not many did. The well-educated in China at that time could find work. The salary was meager, but one could support a family. He thinks 80 or 90 percent of the people who went through the war suffered more than he did. The family, with the exception of one brother, stayed together the entire war period. Soong was 12 years old when he returned to his hometown. Some town names were changed under the Japanese occupation, but the school was the same. Inflation became a problem after the war and people began hoarding necessities. The whole country was interrupted to him because half of China had been occupied by the Japanese. A lot of people had to completely change their lifestyles. This set back China many, many years. China had just begun to build an infrastructure in the manner of the West when the Japanese completely wiped it out. The entire concentration of the Chinese society became how to stay alive. China did not defeat the Japanese, America did. China did not retake the occupied parts of the country. China had resisted but had been in retreat. Only after the war ended, could they reclaim their land.

Tsuyin Soong had been under Japanese occupation for eight years. The government started rebuilding. During the war, the Japanese came from the northeast and pushed south to the coast. His father told him the Chinese could not stop them. The Yellow River goes from the west to the east. The government decided that flooding that large area would be the only way to stop them. The dams and levees on the river remind Soong of the same along the Mississippi River in New Orleans, Louisiana. The Chinese dynamited one section to hold the Japanese advance [Annotator's Note: this was between 5 and 7 June 1937]. A major project was to rebuild the levee after the war and Soong was there when it was finished in 1948. The Army Corps of Engineers assisted the Chinese in rebuilding it in 1947 and 1948. The Japanese soldiers were not kind to the Chinese. Even at 80 years old, Soong does not understand the suffering and humiliation the Japanese put upon the Chinese people.

Tsuyin Soong went back to school after the war. The large cities in China recovered pretty quickly. He went to school in Shanghai which became very prosperous and some people became pretty well-to-do. After the war ended, the society became split into two societies, the well-to-do and the ones who suffered a lot. The well-to-do had mobility and a lot of freedom. The others did not have that, and the Communist influence was developing there. In 1949, the country became separated into two parts. The Communist aim was to take the land from the rich and give it to the poor. The Nationalists said no, we are going to work towards democracy. It finally became one nation and the Nationalists mostly moved to Formosa, now Taiwan. Since Formosa was 100 miles off the coast and the Communists did not have a navy or air force this was safe. The Nationalist government then established diplomatic relations with the United States. For many decades, Formosa, now Taiwan, was recognized as China by the United Nations and the United States. For economic and political reasons, the United States and Communist China are nearly friends again. China and Taiwan are in a dilemma that Soong feels will not be resolved in his lifetime.

Tsuyin Soong does not feel he would not live in the United States if not for World War 2. He would not have moved around so much. He did not make the decision to move to the United States. He was 18 years old and his family felt he had a future there. He received a scholarship to go to school. Soong feels that the war should be taught. The world is the way it is today because the United States won. He feels he would not have been able to live his life as he wanted to otherwise. This would have been impossible under either Japanese or German occupation. Soong wants people in the future to know that his experience at 80 says that one should pay attention to family, the core of your being. Appreciate where you are, where you come from, who supports you and who cares for you. Friends are important but family more so. He does everything to make sure he contributes to his family. One is to nourish what family one has. Your daily life with your family is all that you really have. [Annotator's Note: The interviewer sums up Soong's life.] He feels that being educated in the United States was given to him and was not a privilege. He designed bridges and was accepted as an equal in his profession and he is thankful for being allowed to do that.