Sustine et Abstine: The Stoic-derived principle of enduring adversity with unwavering composure and refraining from destructive emotional reactions, preserving inner dignity and character regardless of external circumstances.
这一代人的故事，再不写就没有了。
The stories of this generation — if not written now, will be gone.
— 齊邦媛 (Chi Pang-yuan)
齊邦媛 was born in 1924 in Tieling, Manchuria. She died in 2024, exactly one hundred years later, in Taipei. Between those two points, she witnessed the Japanese invasion, the Second Sino-Japanese War, the Chinese Civil War, the retreat to Taiwan, and seven decades of Taiwanese history that most of the world barely knows exists.
She spent four years, beginning at age eighty-one, writing it all down. The book — 巨流河 (The Great Flowing River) — was published when she was eighty-five. She said she felt a duty to the dead. The generation that had been old enough to form conscious memories of those events was disappearing. She was among the last witnesses.
The Father: Qi Shiying
齊邦媛's father, 齐世英 (Qi Shiying, 1899–1987), had participated in the 1925 uprising against the Manchurian warlord Zhang Zuolin. The rebellion was crushed at the Liao River — the 巨流河 — and the family became permanent refugees. From that moment, flight defined their lives: from Manchuria, from the Japanese, eventually from the Communists.
Her father carried this lifelong displacement without bitterness. She wrote of him: "直到晚年，他的腰板始终挺直不弯" — "Until his final years, his spine remained perfectly erect." This was not merely physical description. It was a portrait of character — of how a man holds himself through decades of defeat without letting the defeat enter his posture.
His teaching to his daughter — the core transmission that shaped her entire life — was simple: 任何时候都要沉得住气 — "At all times, stay composed."
Not calm as performance. Not calm as suppression. Composure as an inner discipline that preserves dignity when external circumstances strip everything else away. This is sustine et abstine in Manchurian Chinese: bear what must be borne, and do not let the bearing distort your character.
I think of my own mother — who has never read philosophy but lives by the same principle. Standing on a no-seat train at 3 AM without a word of complaint. The teaching is the same across traditions: composure under pressure is not a technique. It is a way of being.
Zhang Dafei: The Pilot Who Died Three Months Before Victory
The emotional center of 巨流河 is not her father. It is 张大飞 (Zhang Dafei), a pilot in the Chinese Air Force.
Zhang's father had been the county police chief in Shenyang, secretly aiding anti-Japanese resistance. The Japanese discovered this and burned him alive in a public square. Zhang Dafei, then a teenager, swore to fight. He became one of the first generation of Chinese combat pilots, trained partly by the Flying Tigers.
He and 齊邦媛 met when she was fourteen or fifteen, through her brother. They began exchanging letters in 1937 — she a student in wartime Chongqing, he a pilot flying combat missions. Over seven years, the letters deepened from sibling affection into love. In the spring of 1943, during a rare meeting in person, he said to her: "你长大了，你很美丽" — "You've grown up, and you are beautiful."
By 1945, as the war's end became conceivable, Zhang grew quiet. He carefully gathered all of her letters to him — over one hundred, spanning seven years — organized them, and entrusted them to a ground crew member. He knew.
On May 18, 1945 — three months before Japan's surrender — Zhang Dafei's squadron encountered Japanese aircraft over Henan. While covering his fellow pilots' retreat, his plane was hit. He was twenty-six years old.
齊邦媛 learned of his death long afterward, in the slow chaos of wartime communication. She carried his memory for sixty years. In 2000, at age seventy-five, she traveled to the Aviation Martyrs Memorial in Nanjing and found his name engraved on the wall. She wrote:
这一天，五月的阳光温暖了我七十五岁的身体，如他难忘的声音那样温柔。
On this day, the May sunshine warmed my 75-year-old body, as warm and gentle as his unforgettable voice.
Sixty years between the death and the memorial. Sixty years of carrying. This is what bearing witness means: not a single act of recording, but a lifetime of holding.
The River That Flows the Wrong Way
The book's title comes from the Liao River in Manchuria, which flows northward — against the expected direction — into the Bohai Sea. The memoir begins at the river where her father's cause was crushed, and ends at the Silent Sea (哑口海) at the southern tip of Taiwan — the farthest possible point from Manchuria.
Between those two bodies of water, eighty years of modern Chinese history flow through one woman's life. The river is a symbol of displacement, of flowing against the expected current, of being carried by history to places you never chose.
齊邦媛 did not write with rage about the forces that destroyed her world. She wrote with grief — which is different. Rage demands redress. Grief accepts irreversibility and continues anyway. This distinction is everything.
Why She Wrote at Eighty-Five
In her final years, 齊邦媛 lived at the Evergreen Residence care facility in Taoyuan. She spent four years at a small desk, writing in longhand, producing a 250,000-character memoir. When asked why so late, she answered: duty. The witnesses were dying. The stories would die with them unless someone wrote them down.
At ninety-five, receiving an honorary doctorate from Indiana University, she said:
我这一辈子活在爱中，尤其是我父母给我的爱，为了纪念他们，促成我写成这本书。
I have lived my whole life in love — especially the love my parents gave me. To honor their memory, I was moved to write this book.
No bitterness. No grievance. After a century of war, displacement, loss, and the specific death of a twenty-six-year-old pilot who had said "you are beautiful" — after all of that, she chose love as the frame.
Why She Matters to Me
齊邦媛's father told her: 沉得住气 — stay composed. My mother, who never met Qi Shiying and never read 巨流河, teaches the same thing by example — standing on a no-seat train without complaint, picking tea at sixty-four without explanation.
I admire 齊邦媛 because she demonstrates what it looks like to carry things for an entire lifetime without being crushed by them. Not through strength — through composure. Not through philosophy — through character.
She is proof that sustine et abstine is not a Latin maxim for scholars. It is the way ordinary extraordinary people actually live: bearing what must be borne, for as long as it must be borne, without letting the burden make them bitter.
我是有骨气的人，也喜欢看大家做有骨气的事。
I am a person of backbone, and I love to see others do things with backbone.
— 齊邦媛
FAQ
What is the meaning of sustine et abstine?
Sustine et abstine is a Latin phrase meaning 'bear and abstain,' central to Stoic philosophy. It describes the discipline of enduring hardships with composure while abstaining from excessive emotional reactions, a principle embodied by Chi Pang-yuan's father's teaching to 'stay composed at all times.'
Who was Chi Pang-yuan?
Chi Pang-yuan (1924–2024) was a Chinese writer and scholar whose memoir 'The Great Flowing River' chronicles her life through war, displacement, and personal loss. She viewed her writing as a duty to the dead, preserving the stories of a generation that would otherwise be forgotten.
What is the Great Flowing River (巨流河) about?
The memoir traces Chi Pang-yuan's life from Manchuria to Taiwan, using the northward-flowing Liao River as a symbol of displacement against the expected current. It intertwines her love for a pilot killed in 1945 with the larger history of modern China, ultimately offering a philosophy of grief, composure, and witness.
How can I stay composed under extreme pressure?
The article suggests composure is not a performance but an inner discipline, exemplified by her father's erect posture and teaching to 'stay composed at all times.' It means accepting irreversible loss with grief rather than rage, and anchoring oneself in love, duty, and the long view of time.
What does it mean to bear witness to history?
Bearing witness, as Chi Pang-yuan did by writing her memoir at 85, involves carrying the memories of those who can no longer speak and ensuring their stories are preserved. It is a lifelong commitment that transforms personal grief into a testament, honoring the dead without succumbing to bitterness.
The life of Chi Pang-yuan demonstrates that to bear witness with love and composure, even across a century of loss and displacement, is the deepest form of honoring those we have lost and the truest practice of inner freedom. — sustine.top