ABSTRACT
Early Life Chou En-lai was born in Huaian, in China's Jiangsu Province on March 5, 1898. Although the Chou family was part of the aristocracy, it was in a state of decline. The increasingly impecunious position of the family made Chou's childhood most unstable and meandering. Before age one, he was taken by an uncle and aunt as a foster son to be nurtured and reared. His genteel and cultured foster mother was determined to prepare him for the civil service examination, passage of which was the ladder to success in imperial China. By age four, he was able to read; by age ten, he was devouring classical Chinese literature. Yet these days of security would end when his foster mother died. In 1910 and at age twelve, Chou was dispatched to live with another uncle in the far northeast of China. There he entered elementary school, which continued his learning of Chinese tradition but which also added some of the new learning of mathematics and science.
