Wu arrived at Grinnell College in 1921, together with Tsung Chin Chao 趙宗晉 and Chieh Min Chang 張傑民, two fellow Tsing Hua graduates; Chang was also a fellow alumnus of Nankai, described as an institution “in the Grinnell-[in]-China district” by a local newspaper (GH 09/09/1921). Wu attended Grinnell from 1921-1923 and earned a bachelor’s in economics upon graduation. This was followed by his three years at Princeton University (1923-1926), where he earned a doctorate in Political Science. Explaining how he ended up in Grinnell, a small college in the Midwest rather than at one of the Ivy League schools on the East Coast, Wu mentioned that an American professor teaching at Tsing Hua suggested that he could get to know the real America and also receive a warm welcome by attending a small college in America’s middle section, handing over a list as well. As the story goes, Wu randomly picked out Grinnell by pointing his finger at the list of institutions the American professor had given him. Poetic license aside, we have reason to suspect that Wu had also interacted with William Tuttle (’12), a Grinnell alumnus who once taught at Nankai; Tuttle was said to be a great promoter of his alma mater who convinced several Nankai graduates, including Kuang Chao Lee (’19, SB 11/03/1917), to attend Grinnell. 

Wu remained highly engaged and visible on campus and in town life while matriculated at Grinnell. Although the youngest of his class and having spent only two years in college, he graduated as a Phi Beta Kappa honoree (GH 03/06/1923), with his picture displayed in the Des Moines Register. During his stay in Grinnell Wu frequently gave talks at local churches, at a Kiwanis Club meeting, and at missionary society gatherings. On campus at least once he had a part in a student drama production (SB 03/01/1922), and in 1922 won second prize at the annual Hyde speech contest (GH 06/02/1922). Almost two decades after his graduation, Mrs. Pooley, the mother of an Economics instructor at Grinnell, still fondly remembered Wu (then mayor of Chongqing) as “the smartest person in Grinnell,” “a short fellow, jolly and fun-loving,” who taught her how to play Mahjong in his spare time (SB 11/21/1941).  

What did Wu get out of his Grinnell experience? In his unpublished Chinese memoir, Wu credited his skills in public speaking to his experience at Grinnell. After he won second place at the Hyde contest, the Grinnell professor who taught his Public Speaking class in his first semester at Grinnell advised him: you must demonstrate strong conviction in what you preach, a tenet that he practiced in his career as a civil servant for many years to great effect. Moreover, Wu devoted more attention than most to improving his English by taking a correspondence course out of Chicago and by every day studying four pages of a 2,000-page copy of A Daily Use English-Chinese Dictionary that he brought from Shanghai. These efforts paid off, and Wu took great pride in being invited with unanimous support to join the competitive Debating Club on campus.  

He generally enjoyed congenial interactions with the townsfolk, whom he described as “straightforward and honest, considering themselves possessing above-average knowledge as residents of a college town.” Relations with his Grinnell schoolmates were also good, except for an incident involving a fellow resident of Dibble Hall who had deliberately placed a big piece of cheese in Wu’s dorm room, causing an overpoweringly unpleasant odor when the heating system melted the cheese. Knowing who the bully was, Wu delivered a handwritten letter to the student’s room but received no response. As a result, when everyone sat down to dinner in the dorm dining room Wu told the story without naming names. Still the culprit failed to stand and own his misdeed, but Wu won a round of handshakes and praises for his speech from the other students. Wu ended by thanking the American students for their hospitality and vowing to repay their kindness when they visited China in future. He enjoyed warm friendship with other American students, too. For example, he was invited by fellow Grinnell students John and Dana Norris to join their family for Thanksgiving in Marshalltown, IA. Wu observed the luxurious property of the Norris family, who owned Lennox Furnace Company, and the interesting custom of having the head of the household carve the turkey. He also reported on his own faux pas for not knowing what “to say grace” meant, causing good-natured laughter around the dinner table.  

In any case, Wu developed intellectually and emotionally at Grinnell to the extent that he felt emboldened to stand up to bullies, first to a fellow Grinnell student in his dorm and then to the Dean of Graduate Students at Princeton. When the latter cast doubt on his Grinnell transcript, suspecting fraud since it displayed only one B+ among all the As, Wu put the Dean on the defensive by pointing out that the official transcript was issued by the Dean of Grinnell; did the Princeton Dean think that the Grinnell Dean had been dishonest?  The Princeton Dean also offended Wu by commenting on the young man’s “immaturity.” Wu retorted by stating: “To judge a man’s maturity by the extension of age is an immature thought in itself.” A brave gesture, but perhaps also one that belied Wu’s impulse to confront authority figures with little regard for consequences. He stated in his memoir that the Dean retaliated by denying him a prestigious scholarship at Princeton. Something similar may have happened when Wu fell out with Chiang Kai-shek and sought exile in the US. But Wu certainly earned his moniker “Mr. Democracy,” as he battled authoritarian rule and systemic mistreatment of native Taiwanese while serving in Chiang’s government in Taiwan, and, once he arrived in the US, he criticized Chiang’s “police state” of white terror.  

For the last chapter of his life, Wu was remembered for his excellent teaching at Amstrong, for the sharp intellect manifested in his works on Chinese philosophy and history, including The Chinese Heritage, and for his fiction works, such as The Lane of Eternal Stability, a novel reportedly based on his dealings with Zhou Enlai and the CCP.