I recently came across a story about Guo Wanying, and it’s truly worth a good discussion. The daughter of Guo Biao, the founder of Yong'an Department Store, she was born in Australia in 1909 and passed away in Shanghai in 1998. Her life reads like a condensed legend of the Republican era.

What left the deepest impression on me was that particular moment—1949. Guo Wanying’s family chose to flee to the United States, but she made a decision that seemed crazy at the time: she stayed behind. Keep in mind, by then she was a noble young lady educated in Western ways, having studied psychology at Yenching University, and married to MIT graduate Wu Yuxiang. Their wedding in 1934 in Shanghai, with hundreds of tables, caused a sensation.

But life never follows a script. Her husband was flirtatious and addicted to gambling, leaving a huge debt of 140k yuan. In 1957, he died as a rightist. Guo Wanying was left alone with two children. The days that followed are hard to imagine—earning only 23 yuan a month, after deducting 15 yuan for her son’s living expenses, she had just 6 yuan left to survive the entire month. She often ate plain noodles costing 8 cents, lived in a 7-square-meter leaky room, yet always maintained her dignity.

What touched me most was that she was assigned to do heavy labor like road repair and manure digging, but she never complained to foreign media. When others tried to use her suffering to make a story, she refused. She drank tea from a enamel cup, steamed eggs in an aluminum pot, and lived with dignity. Her children later went to the U.S., and at over 80 years old, she lived alone in a room without heating, still maintaining her grooming and neatness.

She passed away in 1998 at the age of 89, donating her body and leaving no ashes. From the Fourth Miss of Yong'an to a mud-slinging worker, Guo Wanying used her life to demonstrate what true nobility is. It’s not wealth, but composure and perseverance in the face of hardship. Such stories have already become an immortal legend on the Shanghai Bund.