Xiao Jishu: WWII veteran keeps on giving

On a morning shortly after the start of the new year 2018, a few Henan natives living in Houston visited 98-year-old Xiao Jishu, showing him photos from his hometown in Shangcai County, Henan.

"This is the community center you helped to build; this is the students from the school," he was told. Someone had just returned from his hometown,and paid him a visit to tell him how everything was going there.

Xiao is a well-known name in the Chinese community in Houston, not only for his fighting the Japanese in World War II, but also for his Chinese paintings and charity work over the last three decades.

Born in 1920, Xiao lost his father to bandits when he was six. Without a father, he grew up in economic hardship. However, his mother tried her best to enroll him at a local school, and he learned as much as he could here and there. When Xiao was 15, he lost a cousin to local hooligans.

After a couple of attempts at trying to join law enforcement and making a living by selling his paintings, Xiao eventually became an orderly to a Nationalist Party military commander at the age of 17, thinking that joining the army would help serve justice. With diligence and willingness to learn, he was gradually given more responsibilities and put in charge of handling military supplies.

When Whampoa Military Academy was recruiting cadets in Henan in 1940, China was into the third year fighting the Japanese invasion and desperately needed more fighting power. Xiao decided to seize the opportunity, applied and admitted.

"I took the test under a pseudo name because I was not sure how my commander would feel about my leaving him. I told him after I was admitted. He praised me and sent me on my way to the academy with some money," Xiao said.

He trained in artillery at the academy for two years before being assigned to the 52nd Artillery Regiment. He was a platoon leader when the Luoyang battle happened, and Xiao's company was assigned to defend Jia County.

After the Luoyang battle, Xiao was promoted to deputy company commander. When Japan surrendered in 1945, Xiao was company commander.

Xiao married shortly after WWII. When the Nationalist Party government retreated to Taiwan after China's civil war, he went along.

Xiao retired from the military a few years later, but he had little money when his wife was about to give birth to their first child. His character of resilience and perseverance built through his childhood and military career helped him to eventually build a successful glass business, which later expanded into a construction company.

As a Catholic and someone who was taught Confucius values since he was little, Xiao deeply believes in giving. While running his business, Xiao built housing and a library free of charge for church staff and people from abroad. He also built non-profit bookstore to provide a place for students to go after school.

Besides running his business, Xiao spent his spare time pursuing his love of painting and opened a gallery in 1984. Over time he organized numerous art shows and continued painting. He also began to study Chinese painting under the guidance of master artist Huang Junbi when he was 61.

In 1987, Xiao and his wife visited his hometown for the first time since going to Taiwan more than 40 years ago. Seeing that living conditions needed to improve, Xiao first helped villagers by hiring people to dig more than 30 wells.

On his second visit to his hometown, he helped build a two-story building and office building for the local elementary school.

The third time Xiao went back, he began to build a cultural center complete with gallery, library and movie theatres. He later helped to construct buildings and a library for local middle and high school students.

Xiao also felt that it was only fair that he should also help his wife's hometown Taixing, Jiangsu. There, Xiao helped build schools and libraries.

He has visited his hometown 15 times since 1987. Xiao made primary education his priority, and he and his wife contributed $200,000 to establish a permanent scholarship fund for economically disadvantaged students.

To remember the couple's generosity, Shangcai County erected a statue of the couple in front of the cultural center they built.

Xiao ran his own business for more than 30 years before retiring. As the situation changed in Taiwan, Xiao felt that he was not so welcome in Taiwan as a mainlander, and he encouraged his children to seek education in the US.

During mid-1990s, with all of his five children settling down in the US, Xiao and his wife moved to Houston.

When Xiao first came to Houston, he also established library and painting gallery for the Chinese community. He continued to paint, and watermelon became his favorite subject. People started to call him "Watermelon Grandpa".

On every watermelon painting he did, Xiao wrote: "One reaps what one sows". It reflects his fundamental belief that a bountiful harvest is gained only through laboring.

Now Xiao doesn't speak much, but he paints every day in his home studio. All proceeds from sales of his paintings go to his charity work.

Firmly believing that one is more blessed by giving than receiving, Xiao keeps on giving. Though nobody, including himself, knows the exact amount of money he has given over the years, the guess is that it is probably millions.