CHAPTER ONE
HARDSHIP AND SUFFERING

"You must go away in order to come back."

In 1928 my father, Li Yamei, made the bold decision to pack his bags and leave his ancestral village, Xindian, in China's Putian County. Putian, in the southern province of Fujian, lies along the west coast of the Taiwan Strait and is known to Chinese around the world for its role in mythology as the birthplace of the goddess Mazu, the protector of seafarers. When my father made his decision to leave, Putian was mostly a farm county with little industry and few homegrown opportunities. But there was a good port not too far away at Xiamen and that had enabled the region to become a source of outward migration. Many of those who decided to leave headed for Southeast Asia, particularly the island of Java in what was then a Dutch colony and is now Indonesia. My father had heard stories of others who went before him, and there was a network of people from this region who spoke the same distinct dialect of Chinese known as Xinghuanese (this dialect is also known as Henghua in Southeast Asia). Xinghua was actually the main town in the prefecture that included Putian at that time. My father, along with my mother, boarded a ship at Xiamen, and when the two-week journey ended they were in Surabaya, the main port and commercial centre in East Java. Eventually, my parents settled in Malang, to the south, where my father ran a small shop selling batik fabric and clothing.

In 1929, the year after my parents reached Indonesia, I was born in a hill town near Malang. I was the only son in a family that eventually had a total of eight children, seven of them girls. In a Chinese family, even one in another country, it meant everything to have a male heir who could continue the family line. In those days, girls were effectively second-class citizens. They were considered less important because it was expected that they would marry and begin a new life with their husband and his family. Of my four elder sisters, none of them made the trip to Indonesia; in fact three of them had been placed with other Chinese families at a very early age. This was painful for all concerned, but not uncommon at the time, as attention and resources were concentrated on the male offspring. After I was born, there was yet more family building to be done-my mother gave birth to three more daughters.

At the time of my birth, I was given the name , which these days would be romanised as Li Wenzheng. Li was our family name and Wenzheng combined the Chinese characters for "knowledge" and "integrity". Moreover, these same characters may also have been an allusion to an honorific bestowed on eminent Chinese officials of the past.

I should also point out that Li Wenzheng is a romanisation of these same Chinese characters based on their pronunciation in Mandarin-or what is now called "Putonghua" in mainland China. But in the Xinghua dialect, which we spoke at home, the pronunciation was closer to "Li Mong Ding". My birth registration reflected this pronunciation and was recorded as "Li Mo Di", which eventually became Riady on all official documents issued under the Dutch colonial government. It was all quite confusing, particularly for a young child. Occasionally, though, it had its benefits. As a teenager I was active in a student movement that opposed Dutch rule in Indonesia. I was picked up by police who were looking for an ethnic Chinese whose name was Li Wenzheng. They mistakenly thought I was someone else and let me go when they saw my identification card, which gave my name simply as Riady.

Some two decades later, matters became even more complicated. At that point, ethnic Chinese were strongly encouraged to take an Indonesian name if they wanted to enjoy the rights of an Indonesian citizen. This was a time of great hostility between China and Indonesia which was a factor in social unrest and ethnic tensions. These were the early years of President Suharto's rule and I will talk about the political and economic disruptions at the time he took power in a later chapter. But I will just say here that I added "Mochtar" to my name to become Mochtar Riady. And that name stuck.

But let me return to the very early part of my life. When I was five months old, my grandfather fell seriously ill. He still lived in our family's village of Xindian, so my father took my mother and I from Malang to visit him. Not long after our arrival, my grandfather succumbed to his illness, and my father returned to Malang, while my mother and I remained in the village with my grandmother.

We stayed in Xindian for six years. During that period, there was constant fighting among the local warlords, which left the countryside in turmoil. Xindian was located close to the Fuzhou-Xiamen Highway, which was the main road used by an assortment of armed groups whenever they were on the move. This meant that in the daytime we feared soldiers and the police, and at night we feared bandits.

The village consisted of a long street with a fortified building at either end. At night, the villagers took turns standing guard, on the lookout for bandits. It seemed like everyone carried firearms for protection. At times the fighting between warlords was so intense we were forced to flee to the shelter of a cemetery in the mountains. With war raging all around us, my loving grandmother urged my father to take us back to Indonesia as soon as possible.

There were around 200 families living in the village, and with the exception of one household with the surname Chen, all others were named Li. All of the Lis had moved there from surrounding villages, and my father belonged to the sixth generation to make its home in Xindian.

There was little to distinguish Xindian from other villages across China's rural heartland. These were poor farming areas with few resources and fewer opportunities. The only villagers to get a university education were two younger cousins on my father's side. They both went to Shanghai. Another villager distinguished himself by graduating from a military academy. He later became a battalion commander in the army of the Nationalist-or Kuomintang government.

My grandfather was the second wealthiest farmer in the village, and it was said that he owned 30 mu (two hectares) of farmland. My family had traditionally been carpenters by trade and had acquired enough wealth to become landowners, as well as the village moneylenders. I remember my grandmother as a wise and capable woman, who was greatly respected in the village.

Being the only grandson in the family, I was my grandmother's favourite. She showered me with affection, always watching over me and making sure that no harm came to the family's precious young boy. She always saved the best food for me, and with grandma around, no one dared scold me-even when I clearly deserved it. During those six years in the village, I almost always slept in her room.

One day my grandmother took me to a temple, a serene place set amidst beautiful scenery. I clearly remember her saying: "Child, our home is very beautiful, but look how poor everyone is here. It's because they have no skills. You must go abroad to study. You can come back once you are done and do things for the village. You must go away in order to come back, my child."

I never forgot my grandmother's words. However, it would not be until I returned to Putian in 1990 that I finally understood the true meaning behind them. As I set foot on the warm soil of my hometown, I realised what my grandmother had wanted to convey to me: the village was poor because there was no industry. And I could see then that there was no industry because there was no running water or electricity. It was after that trip that I decided to approach the Asian Development Bank and the International Finance Corporation-an arm of the World Bank-to raise funds to build a power plant in Putian, at nearby Meizhou Bay. I thought that Meizhou could one day become a centre of industry. I also helped the local residents build a water supply plant so they would have reliable drinking water. In gratitude, residents placed a large commemorative stone outside the front entrance of the water plant, inscribed with the words: "When drinking water, think of the source." While the words were a flattering reference to me, they also reminded me of my family's humble origins in this part of China. I recalled what my grandmother had told me: "You must go away in order to come back."

In 1935, my father wanted us to return to Indonesia. I cried for days and wouldn't let go of my grandmother-I couldn't bear to leave her. However, it had been decided that we would return and that decision was final. At the port of Xiamen, we boarded a boat laden with cargo and jammed with passengers, and two weeks later disembarked at Surabaya. At our destination and drenched in sweat, we patiently waited in line for inspection by the Dutch colonial immigration officials.

This was the first time I had seen white Europeans, and they made an especially deep impression on me with their red hair, blue eyes and tall, bulky frames. The Dutch officials had an arrogant and intimidating way about them, and treated Chinese with obvious disdain. I was hot and frightened and started to cry. As I thought of my grandmother and our familiar home town, my mother held me close and told me not to be afraid.

In Malang, I went to the Nan Qiang primary school, where I made many friends. One schoolmate's family ran...