For 84-year-old Lin Legeng, stock is a word that could never be erased from his mind.

"My most proud and painful memories were tied to stock," said Lin, looking back upon almost 70 years of the up-and-downs of the stock market, which have brought him tremendous fortune and glory, and once put him behind the bars.

Reclining in an armchair in his apartment in the west of downtown Shanghai, Lin, whose hair has turned white, has nothing extraordinary to tell that he used to be one of the wealthiest people in Shanghai.

In his prime in the 1940s, bars of gold poured into Lin's pocket a day with which he purchased several luxurious apartments and cars. His stock company was an awesome name in the Far East.

Too shrewd a businessman, Lin became the target of jealousy and in 1948 got suspected of infringing upon the trading law and got 59 days in prison before being set free after being found innocent.

Like every money-minded banker in Shanghai in the 1920s, Lin's father, started educating Lin on financial know-how in Lin's early childhood.

Lin followed in the footsteps of his father, and at the age of 16 joined with a local stock exchange market as an intern.

"My first job was writing stock prices with chalk on the blackboard," he recalled, "ready at anytime to rewrite if the price changed."

One year later, the diligent Lin got promoted and was entrusted to the post of shouting aloud stock indexes in the opening and closing hours.

Years later, Lin, already an expert, opened a stock company of his own. Relying on his precise judgment and business insight, Lin rose swiftly to a respected millionaire.

For some 20 years between the 1960s and 1980s, Lin refused to hear the word "stock" since the "Cultural Revolution (1966-1976)" left Lin a pity that his collection of many old stocks and bonds were burned up when his house was searched.

When stock market was granted a license, first in Shanghai in 1990, many remembered Lin's past glory and invited him to be an advisor to the newborn stock market.

Not at all capable of resisting such a temptation, Lin devoted himself to stocks again, but only in his leisure time, and only as an investor like millions of his fellow investors across the country.

Within a decade, the two stock exchanges in Shenzhen and in Shanghai have developed so rapidly that over 1,000 companies were on the list attracting 4,600 billion Yuan of capital.

"Today's stock market is totally different," gasped Lin, referring to computerization in trading system, stock analysis on paper and in air.

Perhaps encouraged by Lin, all his six sons and daughters are investing in the stock market, not professionally though.

"I am sure the stock market in China will continue booming," given his experience, Lin seemed entirely qualified to give such a remark.

(Xinhua 12/23/2000)