Questionable Fact: Family Name

The Original Story:
Fu Ping was told that her Shanghai parents are not her biological parents in the most brutal fashion: by a group of Red Guards who had come to take her away. She was 8 years old. As she was riding on the train to Nanjing alone, she reflected on Pages 21-22 of Bend, Not Break:

But the truth of the matter was, there had been hints before that I'd been adopted. I remembered a time when my older sister had complained that my brothers were giving me a longer sedan chair ride in their arms than they were giving their "real" sister. I had run inside the house crying. Mama had assured me that she was my real mother. 

"Ping-Ping," she had said, stroking my hair, "you're so special that you needed two mothers to give birth to you."

She also remembered that she

found it strange that Shanghai Mama had always asked me to call her sister "Nanjing Mother," as opposed to "Auntie." Still it had never occurred to me that Nanjing Mother might be my real mother.

The Debunking:
When Fu Ping was still enjoying sedan chair rides from her brothers, she must be at a very earlier age. Thus it is reasonable that she wasn't immediately alarmed or confused by the statement that she "needed two mothers to give birth to."

However, one thing she did not mention in her book is the last name of her Shanghai father. Fu Ping's Shanghai mother is the sister of her biological mother. So they share the same last name which is different from that of Fu Ping and her biological father. (In China, women do not change their last name after marriage.) Presumably, all other children in the Shanghai family have the same family name as their father, i.e., Fu Ping's Shanghai Papa.

Unless her Shanghai Papa happens to also have the last name "Fu," Fu Ping should find herself with a last name that is different from her siblings and her "parents." This should have come to the attention of a girl who was reaching the age of 8. Yet, no mention of this in the book.

What would be the chance that her Shanghai Papa would have the same last name of her Nanjing Papa? "Fu" is not a very common family name in China.

Questionable Fact: Fu Ping's Forced Return to Nanjing

The Original Story:
Fu Ping devoted Pages 17 to 31 of Bend, Not Break to the first real dramatic story of her life: one day shortly after her 8th birthday in late summer of 1966, she was

1. shocked by the revelation that her Shanghai parents are not her real parents
2. forcefully removed from her Shanghai home and sent back to Nanjing
3. witnessed her Nanjing parents being sent away amid a very chaotic street scene
4. became the caretaker of her 4-year-old sister Hong

In subsequent interviews with various media, she repeated the same story many times, only occasionally differed in small details. In particular, she likes to state that, "on that same day, I lost the parents who raised me, I lost the parents who born me, and I became the surrogate mother to my little sister."

The Debunking:

The biggest question of this story is of course its premise: Fu Ping had lived in Shanghai since days after her birth till 8th birthday and that she did not know who her biological parents were. That itself is very questionable. 

The earlier version of her autobiography, Drifting Bottle, describes a happy childhood she lived with her biological parents in Nanjing.

But even if we ignore this glaring issue, there are still quite a few telling tales that her story was made up. In the next few posts, we will go through some of them in detail as we debunk this story.

Broken Fact: Fu Ping's Early Travels

The Original Story:
On Page 3 of Bent, Not Break, Fu Ping reflects on her life as she is flying to America for the first time:

I had never traveled anywhere outside of China. The farthest I had been from Nanjing, the city of my birth, was Suzhou University, where I had studied journalism and literature.

The Debunking:
Fu Ping spent a sizable portion of her book telling us that she grew up in Shanghai until she was 8 years old. During that time, she had traveled between Shanghai and Nanjing quite a few times, as on Page 22:

My nanny had even taken me on this very train to visit Nanjing a few times, though it had been a while since our last trip.

Even after she had settled in Nanjing, she was able to travel to Shanghai a few times (Page 118):

I saw Shanghai Mama and Papa a few times during the Cultural Revolution. The first time was after receiving the letter from Shanghai Mama in 1967, about nine months after I had been sent to Nanjing. Homesickness had overwhelmed me. Trains and buses were free for anyone to ride, and some days there were no struggle or study sessions. I was too young to understand the danger, so I sneaked off to Shanghai one day.

Later on she would be attending Suzhou University and presumably traveled by the same train between Nanjing and Suzhou.

By the time she reflected on her life on that flight. She was already 25 years old and had traveled on the same train route numerous times. She would have to know that Suzhou is between Nanjing and Shanghai. If the farthest she had ever traveled from Nanjing was Suzhou, that means she had never been to Shanghai at all!


In an interview with International Herald Tribune this February, Fu Ping was quoted in blaming her coauthor Meimei Fox for a series of mistakes in her book. In particular, she said of Meimei Fox: "She doesn't know China's geography."

Perhaps. But the paragraph on top is not a background perspective involving geography. It is what was going on in Fu Ping's head. Did Meimei Fox completely make it up or did Fu Ping have a slip in her own mind?

Questionable Fact: Fu Ping's Favorite Airfield Playground

The Original Story:
In Bend, Not Break, Fu Ping mentioned several times of an abandoned airfield near his home in Nanjing which she played often.

On Pages 12-13, when she was flying to America for the first time:

I had never flown in an airplane, though I had spent most of my childhood sliding down aircraft wings at an abandoned airfield and dreaming of becoming an astronaut.

On Page 45, when she was in her "first few months" back in Nanjing:

The boys led me across campus to a warehouse filled with abandoned Chinese-manufactured airplanes. As we slid down the emergency chutes and onto the silver wings, it felt like the greatest playground ever built.

On Page 112, her sister Hong played at the same place:

Once, she broke her arm while sliding down an airplane wing at the abandoned NUAA airfield.

It was such a fond memory that she repeated it again at the end of book on Page 271:

As a little girl, I wanted to take flight and join the fairy-tale woman who lived on the moon. Later sliding down airplane at NUAA, where my father had once taught aeronautical engineering, I dreamed of becoming an astronaut.

The Debunking:
Previously, xgz at his The Daily Kos blog had investigated the airfields and concluded that there was indeed one abandoned airfield near NUAA in Nanjing but no such thing near Shanghai. So, even the first quote above is referring to the same NUAA airfield, which is actually consistent.

The question here is what she meant by spending "most of my childhood" on this airfield? According to her story, she was forced back to Nanjing when she was already 8 years old. Even during the incredible duress the Red Guards were supposedly imposing on her at the time, she apparently could still go on playing there occasionally, as shown in the second quote.

We don't know till what age Fu Ping would still be enjoying sliding down an airport wing. It couldn't be many years after she had arrived in Nanjing. It's also hard to imagine she would be spending most of her time playing there as a "black element" constantly punished by the Red Guards.

So, again, did Fu Ping actually spend her early childhood in Nanjing instead of Shanghai?

Broken Fact: Fu Ping's Dinner Table and Rationing in Shanghai

The Original Story:
In Bend, Not Break, Fu Ping describes this family scene when she spent her lovely childhood in Shanghai on Page 12:

While my older siblings were off at school, I would spend afternoons with Shanghai Mama in the kitchen. She said that food must appeal to all five senses: aroma, color, texture, taste, and love. I'd hang on to her legs amid the sizzle and steam and chopping sounds as she prepared the traditional dinners we enjoyed each night: four appetizers, one soup, and eight main courses. My favorite dish was crabmeat with ginkgo nuts in a mint mango sauce.

Then, on Page 188:

Mao's Red Guard had shut down the farmers' markets and taken control of the city's food supply. Each family was given limited rations of rice, cooking oil, sugar, vegetables, and meat. Sometimes it wasn't enough to feed everyone in my household. A few farmers were selling produce on the black market because they didn't have enough money to support their families. As a merchant-class family, we had always had enough money to eat. But in those days food was increasingly hard to come by. My grandfather knew that if he wasn't willing to part with his precious heirlooms, his family might go hungry.

The Debunking:
Traditionally, Chinese cooking is judged by three senses: color, aroma, and taste (色香味). But that is just nitpicking.

Fu Ping seems to think that food rationing only started in 1966 with the Red Guard. That was plainly not true. From 1958 to 1961, China as a nation experienced the disastrous Great Chinese Famine, when tens of millions of people died of starvation or malnutrition. Rationing began during that period, when Fu Ping was still a toddler.

As the biggest metropolitan, Shanghai's food supply was relatively better than the rest of the nation. But rationing was also in place in the late 1950s and early 1960s, with some food items going off and on rations at times.

Fu Ping's Shanghai family was pretty large, having one grandfather, two parents, and five siblings. Fu Ping herself would not be receiving any ration if she indeed were not registered as resident in Shanghai. Their combined rations were probably enough to supply a meal as she described above once a month. But every night? That's more likely a fantasy.

The story of her grandfather selling treasured collection for money is also confusing as she clearly stated that they were not short of money. Yet after the paragraph above, she went on to describe her grandfather selling a gold nugget to a pawnshop for a pittance. As far as we know, pawnshops don't deal rationing tickets, if that's what they were supposed to be after.

Oh, by the way, it seems that no Chinese reader had ever recognized her favorite dish. It's not a typical Chinese dish so it must be a special invention of her Shanghai Mama. Then again, hers seems to be a special family anyway.

Fu Ping's Interview on John Batchelor Show

On March 19, 2013, Fu Ping had a lengthy interview on the John Batchelor Show. She appears to consciously walk back or provide justification on some of her stories that have been questioned, such as her knowing only three English words or not knowing fractions. She also stayed away from some of the more outlandish tales.

The host, John Batchelor, on the other hand, appears blissfully ignorant of the controversy of her story.

The entire interview can be heard online. Below is a transcript:

Batchelor: I am John Batchelor. This is John Batchelor Show. Late summer, 1966, Shanghai, a quiet street that is presented by the author Ping Fu of her autobiographical production, Bend, Not Break, a Life in Two Worlds. It was presented as an oasis in the midst of a China that has been through a turmoil for the last 40 years and will continue to go into turmoil after this summer of 1966. Ping is 8 years old. She is living in a large and happy family. She is the youngest of several children and suddenly there is a crash downstairs and she is grabbed upstairs by young people -- she doesn't know their names -- One of whom she referred to as Bent Star. Ping, congratulates and good evening. That day, you have painted a vivid picture in your autobiography. Who are those young people coming upstairs and grabbing you? What do they want? Good evening to you. 

Fu: Good evening. Those people in 1966 are teenagers and some of them are referred as Red Guards. Between 1966 and 1968, they are roaming around the country and being given the power of doing things. They will take me away from the parents who raised me -- they are actually my aunt and uncle -- and take me to Nanjing which is where my biological parents live. 

Batchelor: So, they grabbed you and they took you to a train and put you on a train all by yourself. Their authority was just because they say you were born in Nanjing and not in Shanghai so they had the right to take you, as an 8-year-old, and put you on a train. That is all the authority they have. 

Fu: Well, at that time the train is full of people so I wasn't alone. It is very very crowded. Unlike America where children can not move alone, when we were young, it didn't have that kind of regulations. It is unusual to put a child on a train by yourself but the train was full of people, full of adults. I was placed on that train to go back to Nanjing. In China, there is this registration of where you were born you are supposed to live there. I was 8 and I couldn't go to school in Shanghai because I don't have registration there. So I have to go back to Nanjing. 

Batchelor: This is the first day you learned that you had been born in Nanjing. So it was not only a disruption of your life but also you have been thrown into the revelation that your mother and father was from Nanjing and your father is actually an intellectual who worked at a space institution. 

Fu: Yeah, at an university. When I was young, I thought I was born by my Shanghai mama. My siblings actually teased me so I asked my Shanghai mama and she said that I am so special that I took two mothers to born me. I believed her. 

Batchelor: Now  at 8 years old, your memories are brilliant and very careful. They read like a novel, very much like you are thrown into this world of revolution. But I take that, for the first 8 years in Shanghai, the experience was not a disruption. You were well behaved. You were educated. You are going to school. Your mother and father are there every night. Your house was well taken care of. There were memories of family reaching back to before the revolution. Is that all correct, Ping? 

Fu: By large, when I was little, yes that is correct. Close to the time I was taking away chaos has already started. I wrote in the book about a neighbor disappearing, the struggle session that conducted in my house. I started to notice the chaos erupted everywhere. But I was really too young to understand it. My Shanghai parents kind of sheltered me from all that. 

Batchelor: Now Ping Fu is a very successful American entrepreneur and now an executive of a very large software company. Her success is entirely based on her ability to survive the Cultural Revolution and the years that follow, and then leaving China in 1984. She was thrown out because she was regarded as a counter-revolutionary and in some fashion scarred by having an independent mind. Her success since 1984 is entirely on her shoulders and the shoulders of people who were assistance to, with her, educated her and the skill. The reason I am concentrating on this, the ugly experiences of the Cultural Revolution is because this is the darkness. For Americans it is very difficult to see that because the success of China we see today. What I learn from you today is that the China I think of as a tyranny did not really exist in an overwhelmingly brutal fashion before 1966. That's the period starting when you were grabbed until, I don't know the date, perhaps late 1979, after the death of Mao Zedong, and the solution of the Gang of Four, all of that upset and Deng Xiaoping became the head of the state. It was that 13 year period that is actually the darkness of China  Is that correct? Is that a fair memory? 

Fu: That is the darkest period of China. There were some period before Cultural Revolution but they are more regional or more focused like the Anti-Rightists movement earlier and there was a movement the year I was born in 1958. In terms of largest purge of intellectual that started in 1966. 

Batchelor: Ping's book is extremely romantic in its success. It's everything you wanted in a novel. It is part of the facts that here at the 21st century, that your generation, your cohorts is now the same as the new leadership. This fifth generation of the leaders since revolution, Xi Jinping and the others on the standing committee are standing on the stage of the People's Congress. Those are all your classmates once upon a time. Is that correct? Not the physically classmates but they are the same age as you in 1966. 

Fu: Same generation, yes. 

Batchelor: They experienced this disruption of their lives, this crash-in of these illegitimates,  these brutes in many incidences. There are many people who were murdered, who are scarred, their houses were broken in and their properties were stolen from them. These leaders today, they all experienced that as well and remembered their childhood. Do you think that is true? 

Fu: Absolutely. Actually Xi Jinping and also the premier Li Keqiang, they both went through Cultural Revolution. So we are certainly the same generation. If you believe what doesn't break you makes you stronger, I do believe they are strong leader because they have gone through the atrocity. 

Batchelor: But I mean as an author, they haven't gone through the burden of remembering and writing them done and publish it worldwide. 

Fu: Well, I think you are right. I do hope that China will be opening up and be willing to talk more openly about Cultural Revolution. There are a lot, not a lot, but some books published about Cultural Revolution outside of China. But inside China, some time earlier we had some literature about it but now there is not quite a lot. I hope that China will be able to openly say that. 

Batchelor: Your modesty and humility are blocking me, Ping. Because I mean to flatter you because what you have done is you provided a window into a life that is, we can't reach it except your book. I did not know this kind of violence was visited upon children. You were thrown into a dormitory where there is nothing for you. You are not provided with any food. You were 8-year-old, you are in charge of taking care of your younger sister who is 4 years old and crying all the time. You had no parents. You had no supervision. There is a times strangers, yes, but I could imagine, were you in a different universe you would have perished. You and your sister would have perished and I could guess that there were thousands, tens of thousands, who did not survive that brutality. 

Fu: That is correct. There are as many who didn't survive the brutality as who survived. I thank you for saying that I provided a window into the lives we live. I would also say that there were many who lived similar or worse lives that I described. 

... 

Batchelor: You finally are driven into exile by the brutes and the cruelty of a system that is  deemed pretty much out of control, random. They don't destroy you, they throw you out. Not because something you did wrong but because you are a truth teller. Rather than investigate what truth you did at the time on the one-child policy, you arrived at America. No scene I loved more because of its anonymity  You don't have enough money in the transfer flight. When you arrived at San Francisco, you are 5 dollars short. How did you get that 5 dollars paid? 

Fu: There was an American standing behind me, heard my situation and gave 5 dollars to the counter so I could buy my ticket. That was my first impression of America. That taught me a lesson that, when in doubt, always error on the side of generosity. 

Batchelor: You don't know who that is. Do you picture who that is? Can you see the face? 

Fu: I kind of can see the face. I am not sure if my memory is right. That was 29 years ago and I am still hoping with the publication of the book, someone will come out and say, hey, that was me.  

Batchelor: You could not speak English at the time. What did you say? You had the words "Help", "Hello", and "Thank you". That's all the English you have. 

Fu: I did try to study English when I was in China but when I arrive I couldn't remember most of them and I couldn't speak. 

Batchelor: Well, the only word I had in Chinese when I was at Taipei was "Thank you". I forgot it now so I can't repeat it to you but it helps to practice a lot to say "thank you". Now, your success since 1984 was entirely your genius. I love the fact that you apply from very early on to a computer science master's program. You were accepted because they are not aware that you haven't been through grammar school and study fractions. You didn't have any of that. So you would have to go and get a book for 2nd graders and learn it quickly before you got your master's. That's a joy but you were 25 years old. Have you wondered how your brain could pick up all this subjects so quickly? Usually at 25 the brain is shutting down from learning other languages. 

Fu: I lived with my English teacher. When I came to United States, I didn't know if I could go back so I really am trying to adopt to the society and try to learn the language. I guess I was not gifted to the language also. As I said, I did study English before, I just couldn't speak. When you have the language environment it does come back. As to computer science, I wrote this thing about fractions, it wasn't like I didn't know anything, I was trying to show the knowledge gap. When you don't have a formal education, you cannot pick up those things. It's just pieces here and there. I was working in a factory. I study from workers and farmers. I actually picked up some academic information here and there. What I found when I came to United States is that I have a lot of knowledge gap. Some thing everybody thinks they know but I didn't. Then there are some things I just know. Sometimes I feel I am quite smart, I feel like I am the most stupid person in the room because I didn't know what people are talking about. This fraction is just one example of it even though I may know some more advanced math. It is this particular thing that 3 over 5 that I didn't know. I just didn't study it because I wasn't in school in the 2nd or 3rd grades. So I skipped over those knowledge and then later it catch up on you. 

Batchelor: You go on to educate yourself in Illinois and you found Geomagic in the early 1990s with your then husband and you have a child -- all of the successes of an American entrepreneur. In fact, I remembered reading at one point you hired a young man named Marc Andresseen to work for you and he went on to found Netscape. So you are at the beginning of the foundation. You were there when the Wright brothers who were putting the airplanes together. You were there at the digital beginning  At that time, did you keep contact with all the people you know in China? Or did they emerge after hearing your success and find you? How did you contact them so you are so conversant with their lives today? 

Fu: No. With my families of course I have connections. Other people whether they were victims with me or in the same study groups I did not have contacts with them until 30 years later. I did go back to China a couple of times after I become US citizen. I have various contacts with different people but to really have a deeper connection with them it took me 30 years. 

Batchelor: Today, because you have a unique position here, being able to look back to the Cultural Revolution, the China today, is it some thing you could dream when you arrived at America, that it succeeded despite all of its brutality? Is this a success when you think China today? 

Fu: Absolutely. China today is so much better than the China I was in about 29 years ago. It made huge progress. Average life, average living is so much higher. I do think there is a lot of issues in China, just like any country there is a lot of issues. It's not going to be easy for China to resolve any of those issues. But I think we made huge, huge progress. I also realized that, when I was in China, the atrocity happened during the time I was supposed to go from K to 12, the very formidable years. I had this quite bad experience. Now I realized that China has a really long history. My experience does not define China. Majority of Chinese people are good and kind. I wish them well. The other thing I think that is really, really important is in the 21st century I do believe that China and US relationship, the policy of the two country to collaborate are far, far deeper than anyone understood. We need to get it right. 

Batchelor: I agree with you, Ping. But you and I both read the news very carefully and there are some shadows emerging between the two states especially in the area that you are an expert, which is digital. You know this. It's going on right now. Is that something worries you? You see the President and other leaders of the United States talk about cyber-crime and cyber-spy. And that's your field. 

Fu: Yes, that's becoming an issue of national awareness. I believe big success and big fear come hand-in-hand. Sometimes it takes this kind of big fear for us to innovate for a resolution. Really, we don't really know how to deal with cyber-crime, cyber-terrorism, or cyber-bullying yet. A lot of time people are not using their true identity and you don't know who you are dealing with. The scale and the speed of that attack one can use on the Internet is both damaging and scary. So I think we need to innovate. We need to have a policy. We need to have some normal behavior of how to use the Internet and the technology. 

Batchelor: Well, I am very thankful that you are on the American continent now.

Questionable Fact: The Mysterious Shanghai Villa

The Original Story:
In Bend, Not Break, Fu Ping stated that she spent her early childhood in Shanghai and lived together with the Shanghai family in a "grand home," as described on Page 9:

Our family house was peaceful rather than showy, a three-story and three-section villa connecting to a courtyard with a front gate that opened onto the main street of our neighborhood. Surrounding the complex, a stone wall decorated with an ornate iron fence shielded the serene interior from the unpredictable outside world.

And she has a photo to prove it:

Curiously, however, she provided no photo of her family with the house.

On Page 10, she provided a few more details on the location of the house:

1. it is close to the famous Nanjing Road and the headquarters of the Soviet Friendship Society
2. Streetcar Number 24 passed nearby

Later in 1967, Fu Ping made a sneak visit back to Shanghai (Page 118):

I didn't know the villa had been confiscated by the government and divided up. But I found Shanghai Mama in the one room that had been left to her and Papa, on the second floor.

Much later, in 1993, when Fu Ping made her first visit home from America, she found her Shanghai family still lived in the same house (Page 110):

Shanghai Papa complained to me about our villa, where he and Mama continued to live. At the start of the Cultural Revolution, they had been forced into one room. The house had been co-occupied by a newspaper agency and several other families. Slowly the government returned a few more rooms to them, but never the entire house.

The Debunking:

Fu Ping's description of the house being divided up and occupied by others rings true -- it was a common practice during the Cultural Revolution.

The problem? Nobody has been able to locate this house. The headquarters of the Soviet Friendship Society had later become the Shanghai Exhibition Center, which is indeed close to the Nanjing Road. Yet, according to many people who had walked the neighborhood, there was no sign of a house like Fu Ping described.

Could the house have been demolished since then? A house with such a stylish character that had survived to at least 1993 will be more than likely to be preserved. Besides, as recently as February 20, 2013, Fu Ping was quoted by Didi Kirsten Tatlow of the International Herald and Tribune in a complain about her critics:

They smear my name, they try to get my daughter’s name on the Internet, they sent people to Shanghai to surround my family and to Nanjing to harass my neighbors.

Well, it is of course impossible to surround her family in Shanghai if no one could locate the house they live in. But taking at face value, Fu Ping's above accusation clearly indicated that at least some members of her Shanghai family (her Shanghai parents have since passed away) are still living in that villa.

Then, where is this mysterious villa?

Questionable Fact: Fu Ping's Childhood in Shanghai

The Original Story

According to Bend, Not Break, Fu Ping was taken by her Shanghai Mama, the sister of her biological mother (Nanjing Mama) when she was 11 days old. She grew up in Shanghai with her adopting family until shortly after her 8th birthday in 1966, when a group of Red Guards took her from the loving family and sent her back to Nanjing. She did not realize that her Shanghai parents were not her real parents until that day.

The Earlier Story

In Drifting Bottle, Fu Ping wrote (Page 15): 

It was different at home. One day, I suddenly announced to my Dad and Mom: my career plan is to be a driver of the small motor-tricycles. This shocked them. Chinese parents always wish their children grew up to do big things and have significant achievements. This is called "wish kids to become dragons." The motor-tricycles were used by small business people in transportation. It was very noisy and emitted black smoke in the rear. We called them "farting bugs."

I grew up on a university campus, right outside of the campus is the famous Yudaojie of Nanjing. In ancient time it was a road dedicated to the emperors, thus called Yudaojie (Emperor Road Street). Nowadays there are huge traffic on this ancient street, anyone could wander on this wide emperor road. In my childhood memory, the most proud people are those who drive the "farting bugs." 

在家里就不一样了。有一天，我忽然对爸爸妈妈宣称，我的理想是做一个开三轮车的司机。这可把他们吓了一跳。中国的父母都希望自己的子女长大干大事业，有出息，所谓望子成龙嘛。这种小三轮车是很多个体户跑单帮用的。行动起来不但蹦蹦蹦地吵声不断，屁股后面还冒黑烟，我们叫它“放屁虫”。 

我是在大学校园长大的，校外那条有名的南京御道街是古代皇帝经过的道路，所以才叫御道街。现在这古老的御道街可是车水马龙，谁都可以在宽阔的御道上徜徉。在我童年的印象中，最神气的莫过于那些开“放屁虫”的司机。

And also on Page 88:

This is Wuchaomen, very close to my home. I played here often when I was little.
这是午朝门，离我家很近，我小时候常在这儿玩呢。

The Debunking

The differences between the two autobiographies is striking. Besides the direct contradictory above, the Shanghai parents, who were heartily described in Bend, Not Break as much more of parents than her biological Nanjing counterparts, were not even mentioned at all in Drifting Bottle. Instead, we read that she not only grew up in Nanjing but she also did so with her biological parents on her side.

Drifting Bottle was written when Fu Ping was not yet famous. Her Nanjing mother had helped her copying and proof-reading the manuscript. Therefore that version met her mother's approval.

Fu Ping could claim that she neglected the Shanghai story and her true affection to her Shanghai parents in Drifting Bottle to avoid hurting the feelings of her biological mother. But would that be necessary not to mention the parents who had allegedly raised her and influenced her a great deal?

Someone claimed to be Fu Ping's childhood friend has emerged to testify that Fu Ping had indeed grown up in Nanjing instead of Shanghai. But since the individual chose to remain anonymous, the testimony, however credible it appears, could not be taken as a solid proof.

But there are other holes in Fu Ping's new version of her story, which we will continue to debunk in more specifics.