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Monk: Ping (born: Mickey Shannon, Chicago, IL, Oct 1903) [Jim]
Mickey Shannon grew up on the south side of Chicago. His father was a steel worker and something
of a drunk. He never actually beat Mickey or his mother, but his behavior led Marjorie (Mickey's
mother) to leave her husband shortly after he returned from the Great War. Mickey was 14 at the
time.
He was incorrigible as a youth and joined up with a gang when he turned 15. Pranks and vandalism
lead to contacts with low-level members of the Chicago Outfit and an introduction to more
serious crime. He wasn't ever officially inducted into the family but there were numerous assault,
larceny and breaking and entering charges filed against him. He served 18 months at the Joliet Correctional Center at one point. A
robbery turned bad resulted in the event which turned young Mickey around when he accidentally
killed an elderly shop owner who was a friend of his mother's. Fleeing the law, he hid in her
basement for a number of days.
 
He used the time to examine his life so far and came to the realization that the path he was on
led only to destruction. His mother gave him enough money to leave Chicago and he traveled to a
number of places and attempted to find honet work. However in 1936 America, life was still
difficult for many people. Eventually he signed on to a tramp steamer in New Orleans bound for the
far east.
 
Making port in Shanghai, Mickey got a job at a local airport doing odd jobs. After the ocean
voyage he was glad to get back ashore and he began to examine where his travels had taken him.
He also convinced the airport owner to teach him to fly. As he became friends with the man and
learned more about China, he discovered a monastery in the northern province of Henan and after some time, joined the
monks to learn how to live at peace
with his past. It proved to be a struggle at first but as he studied he made progress.
 
Until the Japanese invaded
Manchuria. Ping (as he was now known) was easily identified as an American. Another tragedy
dogged his steps when he tried to stop a Japanese officer from assaulting one of the elders of the
temple, who had intervened to stop the beating of a young girl who delivered vegetables to the
monks. The girl was taken away to become a
comfort girl, the elder was beaten to death and Ping was forcibly moved to a town on the
Yellow River where he was loaded aboard a tramp freighter bound back to the United States.
 
He landed in New York determined to keep his new life and to continue his search for redemption.
A wealthy industrialist named Wayland Wolfe recruited Ping for an expedition he was planning.
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