China let go of a bold and brilliant genius when Huang Xiang left the country. But actually, the story is darker than that. Huang Xiang (sounds like Hwang Shang) was born into a landowning family in China in 1941, eight years before Mao Zedong assumed power. Huang’s father, a general in the nationalist Kuomintang army, was captured by the Communists and executed in 1951.