Background
Anthony C. Yu was born on October 6, 1938, in Hong Kong. He was a son of Pak Chuen Yu, a soldier, who rose to the rank of general in Chiang Kai-shek’s army, and Norma (Au) Yu. When World War II began, his family fled to mainland China, where his grandfather would distract him with phantasmagorical tales about a wise monk and his spiritual companions, drawn from the 16th-century novel. After the war, Anthony remained with his grandparents, when his father was posted to the United Nations in the Chinese Nationalist military delegation and until the family moved to Taiwan in 1951.