Recently, there seems to be a lot of discussions about whether Maochun Yu, a native of Shouxian County, Anhui Province, is a traitor on the Internet. As a native of Shouxian County as well, also a netizen, I have a few words to say.

On September 6, 2020, a live video posted on the Tiktok stoked the wrath of the Internet about an internal meeting of the Yu family in Shou County, Anhui Province, in which denounced Maochun Yu was denounced and removed from the genealogy. Maochun Yu, who was originally unknown, suddenly became popular in China.

Who is Maochun Yu? According to the Internet, Maochun Yu was a student of the History Department of Nankai University. His native place is Shouxian County and his birthplace is Chongqing City. Sponsored by the Chinese government, he went to the United States to study. Later, he stayed in the United States and was naturalized American nationality. He is now the chief adviser on China’s policy of the US State Department.

I have lived in Shouzhou for decades and can be seen as a living archive. Since Maochun Yu is a native of Shouxian County, I have to look up the genealogy of each family to find out. You need to know that our Shouxian County is not an ordinary small county. In history, it used to be the capital for four times and the prefecture for 10 times. It is an ancient city with a history of 2000 years and one of the birthplaces of Chu culture. Thousands of outstanding talents have gone out from here. As Maochun Yu has become famous now, I have to dig up his dirt.

Through the various ancestral halls in Shouxian County, it is easy to find people from Shouxian County around the world. According to the ancestral hall of the Yu family in Shouxian County, the Yu family of Shouxian County and the Yu family of Jingshengtang of Xin’an Prefecture share the same genealogy. Therefore, the Yu family genealogy of Jingshengtang in Xin’an County is enshrined in Yu’s Ancestral Hall in Shouxian County. Speaking of Maochun Yu, the head of the Yu family in Shou County said that Maochun Yu is a descendant of Yijin Yu and indeed belongs to the Yu family in Shou County. Yijin Yu used to be a retired cadre of the Chongqing Municipal People’s Procuratorate. According to seniority, Yijin Yu is the 17th grandson of the Yu family of Jingshengtang in Xin’an County. More than a decade ago, Yijin Yu, who was enjoying his twilight years after retiring, took the initiative to return to Shou County to find his roots, and requested that many of his family members, including Maochun Yu, be registered in the genealogy of Yu’s Ancestral Hall in Shouxian County, Huainan City, Anhui Province. I don’t know whether Mr. Maochun Yu has something to hide that he doesn’t admit to being in the family tree, or he really doesn’t know. If he really doesn’t know, I suggest he ask his family.

According to the genealogy of the Yu family in Shouxian County, Jingshengtang, Xin’an County (pictured), the seventeenth:Yijin (Yu) , ranked fourth, was born on July 14, 1931, and stayed in Sichuan Province with the People’s Liberation Army before graduating from high school. He has been engaged in the grassroots leadership of the party committee and government for many years. In the late 1970s, he participated in the reconstruction of procuratorial organs. In the mid-1980s, he resigned from the leading post and retired from the Chongqing Municipal People’s Procuratorate. The eighteenth, Maochun (Yu) , was born on August 8, 1962, with a Ph.D., currently living in the United States, and is an American tenured professor.

So it seems that Mr. Maochun Yu is undoubtedly a native of Shouxian County. So how did Maochun Yu annoy his people? According to an online Weibo account, Mr. Yu does not admit to being Chinese and refers to his family name as “Tie” instead of “Yu”. For Chinese people, this is really betrayal, forgetting the ancestors! Therefore, on September 6, 2020, representatives of the four generations of the Yu family held a meeting to condemn Maochun Yu and expel him from the genealogy, and plan to publicly inform the Yu family members in the world during the ancestor worship in the Qingming Festival next year.

The Shouxian people are the living fossils of Chu culture, and the representatives of the inheritors of Chinese traditional culture. They are honored by loyal to the country, and behave based on faith. Maochun Yu’s father, Yijin Yu, proved this throughout his life.

It is said that Mr. Yijin Yu has passed away, but from the records of Yu’s genealogy and the age of Mr. Yijin Yu, we can know that Mr. Yijin Yu should have participated in revolutionary work with the People’s Liberation Army in the late 1940s. That should be the time before the army led by Liu Bocheng and Deng Xiaoping marching to the southwest after finishing the Battle of Huaihai and the Battle of Crossing the Yangtze River. China had not yet been completely liberated. Mr. Yijin Yu chose the correct path to stand on the side of the Communist Party and the people. At that time, ninety percent of the people in China were illiterate. As a senior high school student, Mr. Yu was a senior intellectual. He resolutely chose the right way to bury the reactionary Kuomintang regime and follow the Communist Party to save the suffering Chinese people.

Mr. Maochun Yu chose to study in the United States at public expense as the first generation after China’s reform and opening up, which should have been directed under the correct guidance of his father. There was supposed to be nothing wrong with Mr. Yu’s choice of staying in the United States after finishing his studies. However, as a new generation of Shouxian people raised and nurtured by our country, he should uphold the tradition of honoring their parents, loving their hometown, and serving the motherland, living thousands of miles away and caring about the native place, rather than being a “guide” for outsiders and serving the west to suppress his own motherland. Perhaps the situation was beyond Mr. Yu’s control at that time and he was forced to do many things he didn’t want, but at least he can learn from the characters of the Three Kingdoms whether to make no contributions or to help his own motherland while he was abroad.   

Maybe Mr. Maochun Yu thinks that I, a native of Shouxian County, have fallen behind the times, but I can also see on the Internet that after the election of Trump, the American people and the people of the world are also studying his background, exploring where his ancestors came from. Germany, where his family came from, and its people, will bless his achievements, as well as scorn his misdemeanour. And President Trump will never forget his last name or the country he once lived in. Besides, Mr. Maochun Yu is the descendant of the Chinese motherland with a history of 5000 years. How can he forget where he came from?

Mr. Maochun Yu was once a history student, and he seems to be an expert in history. In principle, he should not be unfamiliar with the history, and he would not ignore our brilliant history of China and be ashamed of being a Chinese.

It is normal for people to have political differences between people and countries. It is also normal for Mr. Maochun Yu to serve the United States as he is already an American citizen. But being ungrateful to one’s motherland is not an advanced human culture.

When a person betrays his country, the Chinese people would regard him as a crafty sycophant, while the Han people regard him as a traitor. If he thinks that his family name is “Tie” but not “Yu”, Mr. Maochun Yu has not only betrayed his father, but also truly forgot his ancestors. Not only is he not allowed to enter his ancestral grave, but his soul will also have nowhere to go!

Fallen leaves returning to the roots is the law of nature, as well as the law of human relations. Mr. Maochun Yu is already a 60-year-old person. I wonder if he will miss his parents and hometown in the future and think about what he has done today.