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KAREN BARTA: Good morning. I'm Karen Barta with news from Minnesota Public Radio. John Derus is expected to file a lawsuit today against the Star Tribune of Minneapolis. The lawsuit stems from a photo mix up on the day of the primary election. The newspaper printed a photograph of Derus as state Senate candidate with an unrelated story on charity fraud. The paper printed a correction the next day, but Derus had already lost the election.

Supercomputer pioneer Seymour Cray remains in critical condition this morning after a three-car accident. Only Cray was injured in the collision that happened yesterday on an interstate just north of Colorado Springs. A group of Minnesota lawmakers will meet Thursday to revise the wording of the state's anti-stalking law. DFL Representative Mary Jo McGuire says the state Supreme Court recently ruled that part of the law, which says prosecutors do not have to prove the intent of the stalker, is unconstitutional.

MARY JO MCGUIRE: We wanted to make it broad to include all the different kinds of behavior that could happen. We tried to make it as tight as we could, and I think the court felt that it wasn't, you know, tight enough. And so, now we're going to have to try a different angle.

KAREN BARTA: McGuire says lawmakers will have new language for the law ready for introduction on the first day of the 1997 legislative session. The state forecast today, there is a chance of showers statewide with a thunderstorm possible in the north and the east, otherwise, mostly cloudy with highs mainly in the 60s. Tonight, there is a chance of showers in the northeast, mostly clear to partly cloudy elsewhere with lows from 35 to 45. And for the Twin Cities, mostly cloudy, scattered showers possible, and a high in the middle to upper 60s.

It's cloudy around the region. Duluth reporting 53 degrees. It's 55 in Rochester. In Saint Cloud, it's 53, and it's 57 in the Twin Cities. That's news from Minnesota Public Radio. I'm Karen Barta. Six minutes past 10 o'clock, this is Midmorning on Minnesota Public Radio.

[INSTRUMENTAL MUSIC PLAYING]

Political consultant DJ Leary laments the low road taken by many others in his line of work. Today on our Voices of Minnesota interview, Leary talks about his life and politics. DJ Leary began his political consulting career with Hubert Humphrey when the then vice president was defending the Vietnam War policy of President Lyndon B. Johnson. Nowadays, Leary runs a political consulting business in the Twin Cities with Wy Spano and Sarah Janecek. He publishes a newsletter called Politics in Minnesota. DJ, for Dennis John, Leary is a native of Saint Paul. He talked with Minnesota Public Radio's Bob Potter about Leary's first job managing radio stations.

DJ LEARY: I worked in the [INAUDIBLE] stores, which now, has kind of faded away, but they owned a broadcast division and had stations in the Twin Cities and out in South Dakota and in Minnesota. And I ran a station that they had in Duluth. I was king of the rock, Bob. I mean, the greatest little side function I had in that job was naming rock and roll bands in the '60s.

Kids would come in and say, "We'd like to play a dance for you this weekend, Mr Leary." And I said, "OK, what's your name?" "Gee, we don't have a name." And I said, "Hmm well, let's come up with a name." And we'd come up with names like lock, stock and the barrels and stuff like that. You'd pull them off of labels or old sayings or what have you. It was really kind of a lot of fun.

BOB POTTER: Yeah, yeah. And how'd the interest in politics develop then?

DJ LEARY: I was in Duluth running a broadcast station, and I know our listeners in Duluth are going to be a little offended this, but I caught pneumonia. [LAUGHS]

BOB POTTER: I can't imagine why.

DJ LEARY: Yeah, I know. I can't. It was a lovely July day. No, actually, it was in the winter. And I returned from Hawaii, and I got pneumonia in Duluth. And I was in bed in the month of February in 1968, watching the Tet Offensive, one of the great occurrences of that big political year. And Jeno Paulucci, who's carried the burden of my friendship for so many years, said, you know, you're not so-- seem to be getting much better here. You know, come down and get a little sunshine in my place down in Florida.

So I took a ride on his plane and went to Florida. And, while I was there, he was having Vice President Humphrey as his guest. And it happened to coincide with the same day that Humphrey was scheduled to be in Florida dedicating a bridge and speaking to a dinner of leading Floridians that Jeno had lined up. And so they shifted the date. And I was sitting around not really doing anything. So I said I'll handle the media stuff. It was a little kind of thrown up in the air.

I did that, and it apparently stood out in some way because Humphrey privately went and talked to Jeno about not having me come to work for him in the 1968 campaign. I get a call from Washington, and Humphrey was going to go to Wisconsin to make some appearances before the Wisconsin primary. Johnson had not campaigned in the 1968, New Hampshire primary. And, as a result, almost lost to Gene McCarthy. And so he gave his permission for surrogates in the Johnson administration to go into Wisconsin.

Former governor of Minnesota, Orville Freeman, who was then the secretary of agriculture, had gone down to the University of Wisconsin at Madison and almost got strung up down there. And Humphrey was going into Milwaukee and to do a college crowd at Stevens Point, Wisconsin, and they were going to videotape it. And, because of my background in the media, they asked me if I'd go down in advance that thing and set up the television. And so I did.

And, you know, these were on not particularly comfortable times for the Johnson administration, Johnson Humphrey, and to be on a college campus was really kind of going in the face of the Vietnam protest in 1968. So I went down there, and I set it up. And we did it in the field house, and it was an overwhelming success. The night before in Milwaukee had not been a very big success. And, as a result, Humphrey got to Stevens Point. And it was such a success that he stopped the motorcade twice to get out and thank me for the work. So I kind of came to his attention that way.

BOB POTTER: What was he like to work with?

DJ LEARY: He was terrific. I mean, he taught me so much about the state. I campaigned. I did two campaigns with him, the '70 campaign in Minnesota and the '76 campaign in Minnesota. The private Humphrey and the public Humphrey was exactly what you saw. There was only one time that I can think there was ever any disagreement in that, and that was over Vietnam, the private self and the public self. And that caused the personal distress. But I'll give you an example of.

We checked into the Hilton hotel, the Conrad Hilton in Chicago one time after that convention in 1968. And they have a bank of like 22 elevators in there. And they'd always had individual operators. And when we happened to go in this time, they'd all been changed over and modernized. You go in, you push a button, and it was really wonderful. And we get in the elevator, and it's just Humphrey and me and I suspect a Bellman helping us with our bags.

And, as we're going up, I said, "Boy, these are really great new elevators." And Humphrey says, "I don't like to see this." And I said, "Why not? Look at that. They're marvelous. Look at how fast they go."

And he says, "DJ this is the only job that some people could get." And, you know, that's the kind of-- I mean, there's three people in an elevator, but the private Humphrey cared about people, saw people where they couldn't get jobs and that, and saw what would matter. And he looked at that and said, "You know, for a shift, there was 22 people who didn't have a job again. Maybe there was, you know, certainly many, many shifts."

BOB POTTER: What's happened to politics since then?

DJ LEARY: Well, Humphrey used to have to-- he used to have a phrase he'd talk about. And he'd say they're going to get mean. They're going to get mean. You know, you didn't talk about negative attacks or anything in those days. That's kind of fancy Jesuit word for what-- they're cutting you and quartering you and having you hung up by pieces. He just used to say, well, they're going to get mean about this, I think.

And the fact of the matter is, is that politics wasn't very personal in those days. And you talked about bigger issues. I mean, you can go way back in this country's history. And it was a lot nastier than it is now. In fact, it wasn't-- the fella's name Nasty, Tom Nasty or something. Used to do the stuff about New York politics. But the fact of the matter is is that they didn't attack you and didn't attack their kids. I mean, I'll tell you the kinds of things and how our values have changed.

In 1968, Humphrey picked the late Edmund Muskie to be his vice presidential candidate. Senator Muskie was a distinguished United States Senator from the state of Maine, and it was really a plum appointment. But he came to Humphrey before Humphrey announced it and said, I don't know whether I should do this. And he told him that he had an unmarried daughter who was pregnant. And now, I mean, these days and times it seems very unusual. But he thought this could be a terrible scandal.

And Humphrey thought about it for a moment. He says, "Let's ask Dick Daley." Daley was a sharp politician. No matter what you thought of him in terms of the ham handed old Irish politician running a big city, the fact of the matter, he was an incredible politician. He had great judgment other than what he did in the '68 campaign. And they called up Daley, and Daley says, no, won't matter. That's family. That's private. It's happened in a lot of families. And it's a tragedy that nobody will exploit. In this day and age, it's-- first of all, it probably not be something they might pay any attention to because that, sadly, is not part of our values anymore.

But the fact of the matter is, in those days, it was, and they cared about how they treated each other, and that they talked about the differences. Humphrey used to tell me about this story. He come back for the Jefferson-Jackson day dinner out in Huron during the Eisenhower administration. And, after he'd give the talk, you know, he'd go back over to his mother's house, and then she'd be having people over coffee and cake, so proud of the United States senator who had come from Huron and Doland, South Dakota.

And, after they get in the house, Humphrey said, "My mother used to say, 'Hubert, could I speak to you for a moment.' She'd take me aside, and she'd say, 'Oh, I am so happy your father isn't alive to hear how you talked about the president.'" President Eisenhower. [LAUGHS] And Humphrey was most generous. But you'd touch him up a little bit, I mean, on, oh, no, go slow. It kind of don't make any decisions there of the '50s and that. So it was really remarkable, the sense that people had about their government and their political leaders. And that came right there in the family.

PAULA SCHROEDER: Political consultant, DJ Leary. You're listening to our Voices of Minnesota interview, a regular Monday feature of Midmorning here on Minnesota Public Radio. It's 16 minutes past 10 o'clock. And temperatures are mostly in the low 50s and even some upper 40s across our region at this hour, heading for highs today in the 60s with a chance of showers statewide. We return now to Bob Potter's conversation with DJ Leary.

BOB POTTER: Just what is your business, anyway?

DJ LEARY: You know, you're not the first-- My father, God rest his soul, he went to his grave not really understanding what was I did for a living. I mean, he probably drew some comfort. He told people that I appeared to be too nervous to steal so that it must be fairly honest. But I can remember, when he was literally in the last months of his life from cancer in the early '70s, and he was in St Mary's Hospital in Rochester. And I would rush back to see him in that and there would be visitors, and he'd say, "This is my oldest son, DJ. And he--" and I felt so sorry for him. I didn't know what to call. "Well," he says, "he runs around with Humphrey. I don't know what the hell he does."

One time I was on national television at the Democratic National Convention. The vice president had asked me at a certain point after the acceptance speech, his big speech on Thursday night I believe it was, to bring missus Humphrey and the family up there. So there I was caught kind of escorting them up. And he in his rather unconventional way looked at and says, "Well, I know. He's a--" He looked at me, and he says, told to my mother, he said, "I know what he does now. He's an usher." But I didn't have a fancy hat.

BOB POTTER: But your business today, what is it exactly?

DJ LEARY: Well, it's really a public affairs, public relations business. All of my clients have something in the public arena of government. I don't lobby, but it is such an easy handle to put on people who work around state government and at-- I concentrate primarily on state issues, some federal issues and that. And, because there's not a lot of me around, and that it's just much easier to say he's a lobbyist. And, in a way, I might be. I certainly represent my client's interests in various ways, but mostly in communication strategies that I try to develop for them that will bring their issues to the attention of the general public and make them somewhat acceptable.

BOB POTTER: What is the difference between what you do and lobbying?

DJ LEARY: Well, lobbying, you actually go ask people who have been elected to a position of authority for a vote. And I don't do that. I must say, I do it in one small way on occasion. I have for-- in my private life, kind of the secret pages as it were, I have for 19 years been associated with a program called Wayside House in Minneapolis. It's a program for poor women who are in the stages of chemical recovery. We started out 42 years ago trying to help women when they had become alcoholics.

It was at a time in the '50s when nobody would even admit openly that women could be that way. And all the programs were really for fat white guys like me, you know. They didn't have anything to do. And they didn't realize that, not only could women this befall women in spite of where we want to honor women and had been the case in the '50s, this was a tragic circumstance in many families. But many people hid it and kept it closeted and didn't talk about it.

And this program first got into that and started to help poor women particularly. And, through the years, we moved from that into drug dependency. I mean, we still have an ongoing interest in alcohol as part of a chemical problems of women. And we've seen the ravages of the terrible addictions caused by crack. And, especially in our minority community, our population at Wayside House now is about 60% women of color and that. And we have great support from Hennepin County, but we'd go out and ask people for some donations a lot just to try and help these people. So that's the private side. And, when I don't do anything up on the public thing, I'm back there kind of hustling that stuff for those poor women.

BOB POTTER: What changes, DJ, have you seen in the way the media cover politics?

DJ LEARY: The tabloid journalism, as it were, the stuff that's on the Star or The National Enquirer, which was the butt of late-time TV jokes for a quarter of a century. Now it's becoming the front page. And that's one of the more immediate and dramatic changes. The other one is the realization that nothing is secret anymore. That lack of any kind of sense of an arena of privacy or a ring of privacy is the biggest change. And I think it's been a deterrent, a real deterrent to getting good qualified people who say, who needs it?

I mean, you used to look at business leaders and say they could be the next governor, or they could be a United States senator or what have you. And I must tell you that, quite frankly, I sit in meetings with people like that all the time who think that politicians are nuts to put themselves and their families at that kind of risk and ridicule. Jon Grunseth is a perfect example. Jon Grunseth, many of our listeners might not realize, had a magnificent national reputation in the chemical industry. He was with Ecolabs, and he'd been the head of their trade association and what have you.

And the man is virtually-- this is six years after he ran for office and withdrew in the governor's race, and he's in virtual exile in Tasmania, of all places. And this was a man who was the subject of a newspaper story or a couple of stories in that. And granted that they were embarrassing, and then they didn't hold him to high honor on the thing. But it's been six years, and he and his family still feel the repercussions of that.

BOB POTTER: What are we to do about this as a society do you think?

DJ LEARY: Well, I don't know. I think something-- unfortunately, you know, I've worked with chemical addictions for so many years that I think that what has to happen happens to people who finally decide to turn their lives around you. You can always tell if the person's ready, if they've hit bottom, if they really hit bottom. And, unfortunately, I'm not sure we know where the bottom is in this country.

There are things that just repel us. But at the same time, you know, this past few months, we've had the Dick Morris incident, and the people are elevated to whole new status, the cover of Time magazine twice in two weeks. And I think that the problem is that we've lost our sense of shame about things that should have an element of shame to them. And, as a collective society, we become too open and permissive about these things. Now, that sounds like an old fuddy-duddy. I am an old fuddy-duddy. I enjoy my fuddy-duddy years. As I head into them.

I heard a marvelous statement the other night. It was a very small incident that some people were going to switch to a table [INAUDIBLE]. And the one person said, "We can't do that." And the other guy said, "Oh, I think we can. They won't mine." And he says, "How were you raised?" I thought, how wonderful. What a great thing to say to somebody. How were you raised? Calling back to those elements of values that we all shared as young people. And these were young people. [LAUGHS]

BOB POTTER: What do you say to those in the public who believe that politicians are all just a bunch of crooks? They're out there with their hands in our pockets looking out after their own interests, and they could care less.

DJ LEARY: Well, you know, I can see how that happens. I used to be a professional political media consultant in the very early days when consulting was hardly known. Now, they're on the covers of magazines and what have you. And I look back on the stuff that we did then, and there was nothing I'd be ashamed of. I'll tell you, if I was a political consultant these days, I think I'd get up each morning and wish I had a brother-in-law who was a pimp, so I had somebody to look up to because I really think that they have degraded the system and caused this public attitude.

They found the slick ways of doing things that are just so offensive in many ways, and they've thrown out many of the traditions of good, free society. And I think, finally, I don't know if the public will ever get to that point where they're so fed up, they'll throw something out. We saw four years ago somebody running kind of anti-party in Ross Perot, that he got about one out of every four votes in the state. And something will happen. Something will come along that will return to the standards.

You know, there's much more openness now, and that's all for the better. But I think there's got to be a place where you draw a line and say it doesn't have to go beyond that. During this campaign, they asked for the president's medical records. So that seems reasonable and the thing. But then, they push it the other way and they say, you know, is it because he had a sexually transmitted disease? That then becomes the news. And that's just awful. That's not reporting the news. That's making the news. And it's very offensive.

BOB POTTER: Obviously, Hubert Humphrey is one of the people you have worked with. Your admiration and love for him come through very clearly. Name one or two others that you have most admired over the years.

DJ LEARY: Elmer Anderson comes to mind immediately. Elmer Anderson is one of the great gifts that these people of the state of Minnesota have had. We've been so blessed to have him now well into his 80s here, and his thoughts and wisdom. I just wrote about a couple of his editorials in my political newsletter because he's proposed that maybe we ought to undo the merger of the Minnesota State colleges and universities.

And I know not enough to comment on that part, but that the state universities should have been merged with the University of Minnesota system and the technical colleges and community colleges. Basically, two-year institutions should have been merged together. And that seems to make a lot of sense. And here he is, like I say, in his eighth decade, and he's telling us all the ways that make life better in Minnesota. And Elmer is really good.

A guy who I really liked an awful lot that is in private life now continues to serve as a member of the University Board of Regents and who in memory has kind of been tarnished but was a marvelous governor. And that was Wendy Anderson. I mean, someday long after I've gone, people are going to dig out all of the things that happened in Wendy Anderson's career as governor. He was a bit too handsome and too glib in many respects. And so people thought he was shallow.

But you look back at some of the environmental protections that were placed into law would be great. I'll give you an example of one. There was a law on the books that said, if-- and I must tell you, I fear as I look down the road that we're going back to this. But it was just shocking for a young man like myself in the '70s to find this law in the Minnesota books that said, if you as an older person, one of our seniors, became destitute and had to seek welfare and aid from the government, that they could put a lien on your house. And, of course, many people would never ask for help because the only thing they grew up out of the depression with the idea hold on to the house, it's the last thing you do.

So people were just going without trying to hold on to that one last thing. And you go back into the campaigns of the '30s and early '40s, and they ran on propositions like that. Well, that old age lien assistance, old age assistance lien law, I guess it was called, was repealed in the early years of Wendy Anderson's administration.

BOB POTTER: There's clearly a book or two there, DJ. Are you going to churn it out one day?

DJ LEARY: I don't know. You know, I'm getting-- so the memory is getting-- I've got some notes and that and I used to-- one night, I sat down with the former prime minister of Great Britain, Harold Wilson, who was in New York when Humphrey and I were there. And I knew they had been great old friends. And so I said to the senator, he was senator then, I said, "Would you like me to get a hold of the prime minister and have him get together with us later for a drink?" And he says, "Yeah, that'd be great."

So he had a little speech, and Humphrey had a speech to give, and we met later. And I set them up in a back room there, a little side room. And, as I'm backing out of the room out of courtesy, Humphrey says, "No, no, DJ, sit. Come sit." And so I got up about every 20 minutes and took notes of the fantastic conversation they were having. I mean, they touched on all the things that the history of the '50s and '60s, and they talked about all the personalities, Khrushchev and what have you.

And I recall with great fondness that Wilson said-- Humphrey remembered a night that they had been at Windsor Castle, and they'd had dinner with the queen. And then they went upstairs to a private retiring room. And Harold Wilson poured a drink for Humphrey and Muriel, and Mary Wilson was there. And he says to Humphrey, "You remember what I said to you that night?" And Humphrey says, "Yes, I do." And Wilson repeated it. He says, "Not too bad for a couple of chaps born above a chemist's shop," a drugstore, "to be sitting around Windsor Castle slurping the queen's scotch."

[LAUGHTER]

So I've got precious memories like that. But, you know, I get the shoes tied in the morning. It's downhill the rest of the day. I'm lucky to remember where I have to go.

BOB POTTER: DJ Leary, thanks a million with your time.

DJ LEARY: Thank you, Bob

PAULA SCHROEDER: What a great storyteller. Political consultant, DJ Leary, talking with NPR's Bob Potter. Our Voices of Minnesota interview is a regular Monday feature of Midmorning. The series is produced by Dan Olson.

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GARRISON KEILLOR: Tickets are now on sale for A Prairie Home Companion's F. Scott Fitzgerald show. Our season premiere broadcast Saturday, September 28th at the Roy Wilkins Auditorium with authors Joseph Heller, Tobias Wolff, Jane Smiley, and many others. Music by Butch Thompson, the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra and the Great Gatsby Ball following the show, call Ticketmaster at 612-989-5151.

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PAULA SCHROEDER: Coming up at noon today, Garrison Keillor hosts a documentary about F. Scott Fitzgerald. It's part of our Midday program today here on Minnesota Public Radio. In the weather today, it's going to be a little bit chilly with high temperatures getting up into the 60s across most of the state. And there is a chance of showers across the state as well. And in the Twin Cities, scattered afternoon showers are possible. Look for a high in the mid to upper 60s.

Tomorrow, it's going to be pretty much the same, mostly cloudy. We could see some sunshine, though, in the Twin Cities, and it's going to be blustery with northwesterly winds at 10 to 20 miles per hour. The highs tomorrow from 55 to 65 across the state. It's 27 minutes before 11 o'clock. I'm Paula Schroeder, and this is Midmorning on Minnesota Public Radio.

Women around the world gathered in China last year for the United Nations sponsored International Women's conference. It's a country where such an event would have been unheard of a century ago. Women at that time had their feet bound as young girls, in part to immobilize them, to keep them relegated to the confines of the household. That tradition began to change when Chinese scholars began traveling to Western countries, bringing modern ideas back with them.

One was the poet, Xu Zhimo, one of China's most romantic and popular literary figures of the early 20th century. When Pang-Mei Natasha Chang was majoring in Chinese Studies at Harvard, she came across the name of Xu Zhimo and that of her great aunt, Yu-i, a woman she knew as a very traditional retiring immigrant. But who she discovered had a remarkable story to tell, one that personified the transition from tradition to modernity. In her book, Bound Feet and Western Dress, Chang tells her aunt's story which begins in China, a woman is nothing.

PANG-MEI NATASHA CHANG: I think she was trying to introduce me to a new world and clear the way for me. And that's when she said, OK, before we begin, you have to know that in China, a woman is nothing. When she is born, she obeys her father. When she is married, she obeys her husband. And when she is widowed, she obeys her son.

Of course, this very much opened my mind, actually blew my mind, as they would say more. And, from there, I really was hooked to the story. I wanted to hear-- I mean, I had always thought my great aunt was so dignified and so much a woman of strength. And then to hear her portray herself from the beginning as, OK, you know, we are nothing, that just shocked me.

PAULA SCHROEDER: So you never saw her as seeing herself as nothing.

PANG-MEI NATASHA CHANG: No, I didn't. Even though I think that what I have realized from writing this memoir is that each person has an idea of who they are. And sometimes they can't go beyond the limits of that. For instance, my great aunt ended up not having her feet bound, but she was also quite tradition bound, and I don't think she ever really saw herself as more than a woman, a traditional woman who had survived and who had done things that were modern. But she still defined herself in a traditional way.

PAULA SCHROEDER: You talked about her not having her feet bound, and it was as if her will was asserting itself--

PANG-MEI NATASHA CHANG: Yes.

PAULA SCHROEDER: --beyond her control at the age of three?

PANG-MEI NATASHA CHANG: I mean, I say that she was quite tradition bound, but there was a part of her inside that saw things as they were, that, in her mind, she was saying things that were quite rebellious. Yes, I think that sometimes fate just determines itself for you. She had her feet bound by her mother and her ama when she was three years old. But she cried so much for three days. Even though knowing all the time that she should be a good little girl and submit to the pain, then one of her brothers stepped in.

He was quite modern, was studying Western subjects, and he was quite on the cusp of Chinese intellectuals at the time who were looking toward the West. He told the mother, don't bind her feet anymore. Mother said, well, who's going to marry her with big feet? And the second brother said, I will take care of Yu-i if no one marries her. As it turned out, my great aunt did marry not once, even, but twice.

PAULA SCHROEDER: Yeah. So he didn't have to follow through on that pledge.

PANG-MEI NATASHA CHANG: Actually, what ended up happening was, when my great aunt married the poet when she was 15 years old, he ended up leaving her pregnant and deserted in England when he walked out on her, and she went again to the second brother for help. The second brother was studying in Germany at the time, and she wrote him a letter. And he said, come to me, I will take the child. And he saved her life again.

PAULA SCHROEDER: Your great aunt married perhaps one of the greatest intellectuals in China of the time--

PANG-MEI NATASHA CHANG: Yes.

PAULA SCHROEDER: --or at least one of the greatest poets, two very well-known, very well respected. This was an arranged marriage, as were most all marriages in China at the time. This was around 19--

PANG-MEI NATASHA CHANG: 1915 is when they got married.

PAULA SCHROEDER: Yeah, 1915.

PANG-MEI NATASHA CHANG: Yes.

PAULA SCHROEDER: And so she considered herself very, very fortunate to be--

PANG-MEI NATASHA CHANG: Oh, yes.

PAULA SCHROEDER: --accepted by this man, right?

PANG-MEI NATASHA CHANG: Well, you know, as they looked at the time, they found the poet because one of her brothers was inspecting schools. And he came across an essay that he adored, and it turned out to be the poet's essay. And so, right away, they spotted talent. A woman at the time would want to marry a man from a good family. That would mean not only money and social standing, but also intellectual and having their values in education.

And this poet was well educated and also progressive looking as she soon would find out. And it was a great catch, as they would say. However, his being famous is often difficult for me right now. When I talk to Chinese reporters or people, they love this poet. They think he is so romantic and so free spirited. And this is what they adore about him. So people have asked me, is this the Chang woman trying to get their last word in? Does your great aunt have an ax to bear or grudge to bear, as they would say? And I don't really think that that's the case, but it's definitely caused a little bit of controversy among the Chinese population. Yeah.

PAULA SCHROEDER: Because he doesn't come off all that well in your book.

PANG-MEI NATASHA CHANG: No, unfortunately, he doesn't. That definitely wasn't my intention. I wanted to show how this man was so frustrated by being caught in an arranged marriage. He was frustrated by being caught in his time in China when people weren't changing fast enough for him, and he wanted to push on the way.

But, of course, if you look at it from the Western feminist point of view, no, he was quite horrid. Then again, I do think that artists many times are like this in their personal life. In their striving to create great art, they do end up hurting people. In their desire to be iconoclastic, they end up smashing certain traditions and conventions that leave other people to pick up the pieces. In this case, my great aunt's.

PAULA SCHROEDER: They did indeed get a divorce.

PANG-MEI NATASHA CHANG: They did.

PAULA SCHROEDER: And that was very revolutionary at the time.

PANG-MEI NATASHA CHANG: That was. The poet fell in love with another woman when he went over to England and America in 1918 to study. Now, what he should have done, according to tradition, would have been to take on a concubine. And my great aunt was actually ready to accept one because that would have been the proper thing to do. Instead, the poet asked her for a divorce.

And, again, this was revolutionary because, traditionally in China, a man divorced a woman because she had committed one of seven sins. They were called the seven outs. And these were-- I mean, it was extraordinary to even talk about right now. But, you know, that number one was she had disobeyed his in-laws. Number two, she had gotten repulsively sick. Yeah. So three, she was too garrulous. Four, she was too jealous and wouldn't take on a concubine.

Five, she was barren and couldn't bear him children or sons. And then six and seven are that she had committed theft or adultery. My great aunt had done none of these things, and instead, they chose to divorce on the grounds of incompatibility, which was revolutionary in China at the time.

PAULA SCHROEDER: Yeah. And she agreed because she basically felt she had no choice.

PANG-MEI NATASHA CHANG: I think that and also I do believe that she understood this is, again, fate waving its hand or coming into the picture. I think she understood that this was the way of the future. I do believe that she married this poet. Out of duty to her family, but she probably did want a little bit of love or a little bit of understanding between the two of them. I mean, who wouldn't?

PAULA SCHROEDER: Right.

PANG-MEI NATASHA CHANG: And she recognized that it wasn't going to happen, and she would, you know, go with this divorce and not commit suicide like was expected of her, but make something of herself, stand on her own two feet, learn to take care of herself. Because she was the first woman in her family not to have her feet bound, I believe that she ended up seeing the world in a much different way. And this was a chance to really find her own strength. Do you know how sometimes we find our own strength from crises?

PAULA SCHROEDER: Oh, absolutely. Yes.

PANG-MEI NATASHA CHANG: She was forced into this one, but she really rose to the occasion.

PAULA SCHROEDER: She was revered by his parents, which made her position pretty good.

PANG-MEI NATASHA CHANG: I think that it was funny because she is loved by traditional people such as her in-laws, and yet, when she became vice president of the Shanghai Women's Savings Bank, women saw her, other women saw her as being very modern, cutting edge, a real survivor. So she was very lucky to be loved by both sets of people.

PAULA SCHROEDER: It's interesting that we both use the word love, that she was loved. And yet, you say in her book that she says at one point she never in her life told anyone she loved them, that the word love itself was just not a part of--

PANG-MEI NATASHA CHANG: Her vocabulary.

PAULA SCHROEDER: Yeah.

PANG-MEI NATASHA CHANG: Yes. Well, what ended up happening was the poet ended up marrying another woman that he loved, as they would say. And to my great aunt's mind, this is the Western love that actually the poet became very famous for introducing into China. This kind of Western love is actually, I think, something that she is completely untrusting of. She sees it as passion just for the moment, not filled with responsibility.

To her, love-- and she wouldn't even use that term. But because I forced her to, she ended up doing so. It's more Eastern love. She sees that as loyalty, duty, responsibility. My great aunt makes the decision-- Actually, why she told me the story, I believe, is because she realized that everything she had done for the poet and his family, even after the divorce, could be construed as love. Shortly before, a year before we began interviewing, she was reading a Chinese newspaper, and they were publishing letters between the poet and his second wife. And this was supposed to be the love affair of the century.

And, as she was reading these letters, she realized how unhappy the poet had been, what a horrible family life he had had with his second wife. And this put into question for her everything that she had been told or heard about their love. And she decided or reconciled that what she had been doing was love but in her way.

PAULA SCHROEDER: All her life, she had yearned to be educated--

PANG-MEI NATASHA CHANG: Yes.

PAULA SCHROEDER: --and wanted to learn the lessons. She had eight brothers, all of whom were very highly educated. It was one of the families that were considered scholars in China and very well-known for that as well. And yet, girls did not get that kind of education. But she lobbied hard for it.

PANG-MEI NATASHA CHANG: She did. I mean, that is so surprising because here is a woman saying to me, women are nothing in China. And yet, I hear how she wanted to go to school. She would sneak in on classes with the tutors of her brothers. It's extraordinary, really. I think she understood that education was the path to the future. I mean, even today in my family, they always say that you can lose everything in the world, money, possessions, land, but education can't be taken from you. And that's come probably from not just Yu-i's generation, but even further back.

PAULA SCHROEDER: One of the underlying themes in this book, too, that's so interesting is how quickly that literally centuries of tradition changed--

PANG-MEI NATASHA CHANG: Oh, it's extraordinary.

PAULA SCHROEDER: --with the influence of Western culture in China.

PANG-MEI NATASHA CHANG: I think China had been quite isolated until the 1860s and '70s when the West started to come in in boats, you know, and try out their shores and start to take over the land. China had been trying to close itself off from that. They didn't undergo the Industrial Revolution. If they followed the Confucian way, it was always looking toward the past. Confucian tradition really admires and emphasizes the past and reviewing the past as opposed to progressing forward like we Westerners do.

So, when the West came in at the turn of the century, China was just shaken really to pieces. And there was a period of time when Chinese were trying to separate between Western ways and Chinese essence. There was a whole movement where they tried to separate the two so that, if we learn to use a gun, let's say, we still kept our Chinese essence of peace and serenity. I'm not sure you can do that. It's the same way that, once my great aunt had big feet, her mind changed. That's actually an aspect that I've been thinking a lot about. I find that fascinating.

PAULA SCHROEDER: Absolutely. How has how have you been affected by that kind of change, that rapid change? Because your grandparents came from China?

PANG-MEI NATASHA CHANG: My grandparents came from China, and my parents were actually born in China, both of them born in 1940. And they came out to the West in 1949, just before the Communist revolution. I have been affected by that in the sense of feeling quite homeless and rootless as I grew up, because my parents had great memories of China, even though they came to the States when they were maybe 10 or 12. But to them, their home was attached to a land, was attached to memories, of relatives.

I felt that I didn't have any of this when I grew up. I felt that I grew up in a land that didn't really accept me. Because, where I grew up in Connecticut at the time, I just ran into a friend that I went to elementary school with. She said to me, you were the only Chinese in the school. I remember that. And, you know, I'm not imagining it because I think, right now in today's age, it's very different. We're much more mobile. And there have been an influx of immigrants.

But when I was growing up, we were one of the few Chinese in the town. I was called chink a lot. I felt that I had two worlds occurring. There was one that was my family's world. It was very private, secret almost. It had great love for China, great pride in being Chinese. And then there was my Western school world that actually made fun of China and made fun of me. My parents had trouble understanding this because they were so proud of being Chinese. That's what I wrote in the book--

PAULA SCHROEDER: Yeah, that was very funny.

PANG-MEI NATASHA CHANG: --when I said, "Mom, they're calling me chink." And my mother said, "Oh, I bet they just wish they were Chinese."

[LAUGHTER]

PAULA SCHROEDER: Right.

PANG-MEI NATASHA CHANG: I mean, how can you work with that?

PAULA SCHROEDER: No sympathy from mom.

PANG-MEI NATASHA CHANG: Exactly. Mother was just too secure and proud.

PAULA SCHROEDER: Well, a couple of months ago, I did an interview with another writer, Chinese-American writer, named Gish Jen, who grew up in a very similar kind of situation as you were and wrote about this being a modern American girl with Chinese parents--

PANG-MEI NATASHA CHANG: Exactly.

PAULA SCHROEDER: --and how her mother would tell her, a good Chinese girl would not do that or would not say that. Did you run into the same thing?

PANG-MEI NATASHA CHANG: Well, it's funny because my parents were actually extremely modern. They went to high school in the States. They speak English between the two of them. They have mainly non-Chinese friends. And yet, they are what I consider just so-- not chameleon because they don't feel that they lose their identity, but they are able to go back and forth so quickly between the two cultures. This skill I so much envied as a child.

For instance, my name Pang-Mei and then my middle name, Natasha. When I was with my family, I was always called Pang-Mei, and that's the name that I really love because it's with my family. But my parents always had me use the name Natasha when I was in school. And, whenever we would be in front of, quote, "outsiders," my mother would say, "Natasha, come here." Or when guests came to the house, I became Natasha. My parents were able to go back and forth between the two worlds so easily.

I don't feel that I missed the traditions of China growing up with such modern parents, mainly because my parents defined themselves by being Chinese. This is what they felt kept their marriage together, and that's why I should marry a Chinese. My parents came over here in the '50s when, unfortunately, there were still quite a bit of racism going on at the time, and they were very aware of that and how it could hurt a child. So they felt that they didn't want me to marry a non-Chinese because maybe my children would be hurt by this kind of racism.

PAULA SCHROEDER: Did you feel that-- you talked about your parents, how they wanted you to marry within your heritage.

PANG-MEI NATASHA CHANG: Yes, within my tribe and heritage.

PAULA SCHROEDER: Yes. Right. And then did you feel like you needed to honor your great aunt by marrying [INAUDIBLE]?

PANG-MEI NATASHA CHANG: Oh, yes. Definitely. I remember so clearly periods when I was interviewing my great aunt and working on this book that I felt, if I didn't marry a Chinese, all my ancestors would turn over in their grave. I mean, to this day, I remember I never told [? Yu-i ?] if I wasn't dating a Chinese person. I remember the only man I mentioned to her was this Chinese man that was a great scholar, a great family, and I know she would have approved of him. I think she did expect me to marry a Chinese.

PAULA SCHROEDER: But you didn't.

PANG-MEI NATASHA CHANG: No, I didn't. You know, it's funny because people ask me, do you think that there's one question that you missed asking Yu-i? I would have loved to have gotten her approval of my present husband.

[LAUGHTER]

It would have been quite nerve-racking, but I really wish she had met him and given me the OK.

PAULA SCHROEDER: Pang-Mei Natasha Chang tells her Great Aunt Yu-i's story in her book Bound Feet and Western Dress. It's published by Doubleday.

[INSTRUMENTAL MUSIC PLAYING]

GARRISON KEILLOR: This fall is the 100th anniversary of the birth of F. Scott Fitzgerald, author of The Great Gatsby, Tender is the Night.

PAULA SCHROEDER: Yes, indeed. It is the birthday of F. Scott Fitzgerald. And, by the way, you can hear a documentary about F. Scott Fitzgerald at noon today on Midday, and it's hosted by Garrison Keillor. And during the 11 o'clock hour of Midday today, a report on the lawsuit being filed by state Senate candidate, John Derus. The Star Tribune newspaper erroneously ran Mr. Derus' picture with a story about charity fraud on election day. Derus lost the election by 104 votes. He's now suing The Star Tribune for that error. It's time now for Garrison Keillor and the Writer's Almanac.

[INSTRUMENTAL MUSIC PLAYING]

GARRISON KEILLOR: And here is the Writer's Almanac for Monday. It's the 23rd of September, 1996, Yom Kippur in the Hebrew calendar, the day of atonement, a time for fasting, repentance, and seeking forgiveness. It was on this day in 1964, Fiddler on the Roof was first performed in New York. Zero Mostel singing If I Were a Rich Man. Buddy Holly and The Crickets, that'll be the day was the number one record in the United States on this day in 1957. Sigmund Freud died in 1939 on this day.

It's the birthday in 1930 in Albany, Georgia, of Ray Charles Robinson, who became pianist and singer Ray Charles, began playing piano at the age of five. He went blind from untreated glaucoma at the age of seven, studied music at a school for the deaf and blind, and formed his own band at the age of 15. Saxophonist John Coltrane, born 1926. On this day, Hamlet, North Carolina, grew up in Philadelphia, played as a sideman with Dizzy Gillespie and Johnny Hodges, Eddie Vinson before he landed in the Miles Davis quintet of the mid '50s.

It's the birthday of physicist Clifford G. Shull, born in Pittsburgh, 1915, who received the Nobel Prize for physics in 1994 for developing neutron diffraction techniques, a beam of single-wavelength neutrons scatters into a pattern that can be recorded on photographic film when it hits the atoms of a material under study. It's the anniversary of the first of the Keystone Cops films, 1912, produced by Mack Sennett, Cohen Collects a Debt.

It's the birthday of writer and political analyst, Walter Lippmann, New York City, 1889, whose Today and Tomorrow column ran for many years in The New York Herald Tribune. Later, he helped to start the New Republic. It's the birthday in 1880 and Kilmaurs Scotland of Sir John Boyd Orr, a pioneering nutritionist who, in the mid-1930s, determined that a minimal diet with minimal nutritional requirements was beyond the financial means of half the population of Great Britain.

In 1861 in Ahlbeck Germany, inventor, Robert Bosch, was born, an engineer who invented the magneto, which generated current for the first automobile ignition system. He did that in 1897. He also was involved in developing windshield wiper motors, starters, generators, fuel injection systems for cars. Here's a poem for today by Billy Collins entitled Morning.

Why would anyone bother with the rest of the day,

The swale of the afternoon,

The sudden dip into evening,

Then night with his notorious perfumes,

His many pointed stars?

This is the best,

Throwing off the light covers,

Feet on the cold floor,

And buzzing around the house on espresso.

Maybe a splash of water on the face,

A palmful of vitamins,

But mostly buzzing around the house on espresso,

Dictionary and Atlas open on the rug,

The typewriter waiting for the key of the head,

A cello on the radio,

And if necessary, the windows,

Trees 50, a hundred years old out there,

Heavy clouds on the way,

And the lawn steaming like a horse, in the early morning.

A poem by Billy Collins entitled Morning used here by permission of the poet. And that's the Writer's Almanac for Monday, September 23rd, made possible by Cowles History Group, publishers of Wild West and other magazines. Be well. Do good work. And keep in touch.

[INSTRUMENTAL MUSIC PLAYING]

PAULA SCHROEDER: Coming up tomorrow on Midmorning, President Clinton addresses the United Nations. We will carry that address live. So tune in for that. We will follow it with a discussion about the role of the United Nations and the United States participation in it and view of it. That's coming up tomorrow on Midmorning. Stay tuned. Midday is coming up next. You can hear that documentary about F. Scott Fitzgerald part one of the two-part documentary at noon today. And, otherwise, we'll have all the news for you for the rest of the day as well. I'm Paula Schroeder. Thanks so much for joining us today.

[INSTRUMENTAL MUSIC PLAYING]

You're listening to Minnesota Public Radio.

SPEAKER 1: --with you never go by yourself nowhere.

GARY EICHTEN: On the next All Things Considered, growing up Somali in Rochester. It's All Things Considered weekdays at 3:00 on Minnesota Public Radio KNOW FM 91.1.

PAULA SCHROEDER: 59 degrees under sunny skies-- or cloudy skies at KNOW FM 91.1 Minneapolis Saint Paul. We're expecting a high today, around 67 degrees. And we should have some scattered afternoon showers and overnight low near 40. Tomorrow, partly sunny with a high in the low 60.

GARY EICHTEN: Good morning. It's 11:00 and this is Midday on Minnesota Public Radio with Monitor Radio's David Brown. I'm Gary Eichten. And the news this morning, Reform Party presidential candidate, Ross Perot has filed