There is a 19th Century American saying of “Go West, Young Man!” It was a slogan encouraging young folks to explorer the Wild West. Well, Huang family seems to follow the spirit but we “Go East”, as it is from China to Taiwan and then to US.
My dad’s three younger brothers went to US to further their education when I was too young to remember (Uncle Claudio was the exception). When I was 14 years old, after several visits to US in the previous years, Steve moved his family from a comfortable life in Taiwan to US for his children’s education. We landed in LAX on July 1980 and stay in Uncle Hong and Aunt Li-Shun’s townhouse. On August 5th, Jack’s birthday, we moved to our first apartment in Monterey Park. The address was 1902 S. Garfield Ave, Apt D, Monterey Park, CA. It was a two bedroom apartment owned by one of the church member. Soon after we settled down, my dad has to go back to Taiwan to continue operating his import business so his family can continue to live in US. At that time, the living expense was a lot higher in US than in Taiwan and the currency exchange rate was $NT 36 vs $1 US. It was a difficult adjustment for the first year us as we spoke no words of English and we didn’t have a car. Uncle Hong picked us up every Sunday go to church and some grocery runs. The rest of the time we either bike or walk to the nearby Food City (grocery store) for the grocery. It was a trial for both us kids and my parent’s marriage as my dad only come visit us twice a year and each time he can only stay about three weeks or so. As God has in His merciful plan, we had church members close by to help us and Jack and I ran into my old classmate, Willy Chia, from my Jr. High in Taiwan who immigrated from Taiwan a year earlier (what is the odd of that??!!).
The first two years of life in US was not too bad. We got more involved with church and we were able to move around a lot more after we got our first car, a dark blue 1977 Chevrolet Malibu. We made friends and attending church so we have some sense of “belonging”. The problem was that we did not learn too much English; we did pick up some cursing words in Spanish and Vietnamese (LA suburb is a big culture salad bowl; there is no such thing as ‘melting pot’, in my opinion). The high school we went to does not really care if we go to college or not; they just want to make sure we graduate. In the summer of 1983, we bough a house in Huntington Beach, CA, our first house in US. Well, there were not a lot of Taiwanese in HB at that time and so we kids were forced to learn English. On top of that, school made sure that we took the right courses for the college we want to apply (big course requirement different between Cal. State University System and Univ. of Calif. System).
Our emigrating to US from Taiwan was not uncommon in the early 1980s’. There are many kids my age move to US to study. The major different was that my mom was with us, and some of the other kids got only a “baby sitter” (parents paid someone to oversee their kids and come to visit their kids once in a while; many of the sitters were 'taking care' of several kids at the same time). There were many untold tragedy of teenagers gone wild (teenage pregnancy, drug use, gang activities, etc.) due to lack of parental supervision. It was God’s grace that we were surrounded by many church friends that we had a rather “normal” life in those growing up years.
Thursday, October 29, 2009
Fu-Mei Huang
Ten plus years ago when I came across our family’s government residential record, I noticed the name “Fu-Mei” inserted between Aunt Jia-Huia and Aunt Li-Sun. My dad only told me that she died as a toddler due to illness without much elaboration. I did not press on as it seems to bother him.
This is a brief “oral” record from Uncle Cliff about our 2nd Aunt, Fu-Mei Huang.
“Recently in an email sent to you all from Claudio regarding the death of my second sister, Fu-Mei Huang. Claudio's account of her death due to "illness like flu" is not accurate. She died from malnutrition, not from some kind of disease. Even today, Steve and I still cannot forget the scene of the tragedy. You have to understand that, at that time, our family lived in an extreme poverty. With four kids and a new born, Agon and Ama just could not feed all ofus. With another baby (Li-Shun) was coming, Ama just could not breastfeed Fu-Mei. Without milk, all Agon and Ama could do was to feed her rice water (water from cooking rice). Malnutrition was the cause of the deterioration of her health (starve to death?). In thelast few days of her life, she was laid on a piece of wooden board(bed) in the living room. After she died, she was put in a home-made tinny wooden box (about 2x3 feet) and was carried away by two friends. Steve and I followed her to the end of the alley. Nobody knew where she was buried. According to these two friends who buried her, it was in a nearby hill. There was no tombstone, only a piece of rock. That is the end of her short two-years of miserable life. Every time we think of her, we feel sorry for her and feel how lucky we are. After Li-shun were born, Agon swore it would notrepeat again. He tried all he could to scrape every penny to buy expensive (at that time) real milk (the can milk) to feed the newborn. Li-shun and Claudio were the luckiest ones in the family who had real milk, instead of rice water, as babies. Anyway, this is atragedy chapter of the Huang Family.
God bless Fu-Mei and our family.”
Uncle Claudio dreamed of the older sister that he never met:
"About 8 years ago, I had a dream. In there was a little girl looked like 4 years old (pre-school age). I asked her, "Hi, you are very cute, what is your name?" She said to me in the dream, "I am your elder sister." I told this dream to A-mom, her eyes were filled with tears. I think a mother never forgets her precious child regardless how many years it went by. "
Aunt Fu-Mei, although your stop in this world was short and difficult, you are not forgotten…
This is a brief “oral” record from Uncle Cliff about our 2nd Aunt, Fu-Mei Huang.
“Recently in an email sent to you all from Claudio regarding the death of my second sister, Fu-Mei Huang. Claudio's account of her death due to "illness like flu" is not accurate. She died from malnutrition, not from some kind of disease. Even today, Steve and I still cannot forget the scene of the tragedy. You have to understand that, at that time, our family lived in an extreme poverty. With four kids and a new born, Agon and Ama just could not feed all ofus. With another baby (Li-Shun) was coming, Ama just could not breastfeed Fu-Mei. Without milk, all Agon and Ama could do was to feed her rice water (water from cooking rice). Malnutrition was the cause of the deterioration of her health (starve to death?). In thelast few days of her life, she was laid on a piece of wooden board(bed) in the living room. After she died, she was put in a home-made tinny wooden box (about 2x3 feet) and was carried away by two friends. Steve and I followed her to the end of the alley. Nobody knew where she was buried. According to these two friends who buried her, it was in a nearby hill. There was no tombstone, only a piece of rock. That is the end of her short two-years of miserable life. Every time we think of her, we feel sorry for her and feel how lucky we are. After Li-shun were born, Agon swore it would notrepeat again. He tried all he could to scrape every penny to buy expensive (at that time) real milk (the can milk) to feed the newborn. Li-shun and Claudio were the luckiest ones in the family who had real milk, instead of rice water, as babies. Anyway, this is atragedy chapter of the Huang Family.
God bless Fu-Mei and our family.”
Uncle Claudio dreamed of the older sister that he never met:
"About 8 years ago, I had a dream. In there was a little girl looked like 4 years old (pre-school age). I asked her, "Hi, you are very cute, what is your name?" She said to me in the dream, "I am your elder sister." I told this dream to A-mom, her eyes were filled with tears. I think a mother never forgets her precious child regardless how many years it went by. "
Aunt Fu-Mei, although your stop in this world was short and difficult, you are not forgotten…
Wednesday, October 21, 2009
Chin-Su and I-Mei Huang
Chin-Su (A-gong) and I-Mei (A-ma) were born and raised in the village of Ho-Long ("Rear Dragon") of Miao-Li county in northern Taiwan. The Huang family had a small business of retail fruit stands by the railroad station there. A-gong had a vision of expanding the life horizons for himself and his family, so he and A-ma emigrated to Taichung -- with almost nothing -- in early 1940. His vision and perseverence influenced his children for many years to come.
When they arrived in Taichung, A-gong's good friend (a "sworn brother") lent him a bicycle to start their new life. Times were tough then, and both had to work together to earn a living.
A-gong and A-ma had seven children: Steve, Cliff, Matthew, Chia-Hui, Lishun, and Claudio. A second daughter born between Chia-Hui and Lishun passed away when she was 2 years old. A-gong had a banana business where he invented a special process that would keep the bananas fresh until they would ripen right at the moment of delivery. All the kids would help collect the bananas and take them to the market. Uncle Claudio said two kids would carry a stick of bananas, but dad would show off and carry one all by himself. A-gong's formal education was cut short with the untimely death of his own father. However, he later taught himself how to read and write, even winning Chinese calligraphy competitions later in life.
When Matthew was only 3 or 4 years old, he was often placed and stood in a shallow, dry ditch in front of the house (when A-gong and A-ma were busy, because the ditch served a babysitting purpose). From the ditch, he watched American and Japanese warplanes dogfighting in the sky.
A-gong and dad ran in the Ford family fun run (4 miles) in the 1980s -- A-gong was interviewed on the Michigan news because he was the oldest man to run in the race. I believe he was in his 70s.
Uncle Claudio said A-gong and A-ma truly had vision when they left their home village of Miao-Li. Their spirit of perseverance runs in the blood of all of us. We are forever grateful for their endeavors.
Chin-Su Huang (born: May 10, 1913 died: November 25, 1998)
I-Mei (born: September 25, 1914)
When they arrived in Taichung, A-gong's good friend (a "sworn brother") lent him a bicycle to start their new life. Times were tough then, and both had to work together to earn a living.
A-gong and A-ma had seven children: Steve, Cliff, Matthew, Chia-Hui, Lishun, and Claudio. A second daughter born between Chia-Hui and Lishun passed away when she was 2 years old. A-gong had a banana business where he invented a special process that would keep the bananas fresh until they would ripen right at the moment of delivery. All the kids would help collect the bananas and take them to the market. Uncle Claudio said two kids would carry a stick of bananas, but dad would show off and carry one all by himself. A-gong's formal education was cut short with the untimely death of his own father. However, he later taught himself how to read and write, even winning Chinese calligraphy competitions later in life.
When Matthew was only 3 or 4 years old, he was often placed and stood in a shallow, dry ditch in front of the house (when A-gong and A-ma were busy, because the ditch served a babysitting purpose). From the ditch, he watched American and Japanese warplanes dogfighting in the sky.
A-gong and dad ran in the Ford family fun run (4 miles) in the 1980s -- A-gong was interviewed on the Michigan news because he was the oldest man to run in the race. I believe he was in his 70s.
Uncle Claudio said A-gong and A-ma truly had vision when they left their home village of Miao-Li. Their spirit of perseverance runs in the blood of all of us. We are forever grateful for their endeavors.
Chin-Su Huang (born: May 10, 1913 died: November 25, 1998)
I-Mei (born: September 25, 1914)
Family on Matthew
Matthew was a man of extremes and a daredevil, he had no fears or worries. Without him, I never would have reached the top of the Great Wall. ~ Becky
I will always remember A-Gong for being the fix-it man in our house. In the last year, he helped us fix our refrigerator and washing machine. He also assembled my basketball hoop when Daddy got frustrated. It was always fun when he and A-Ma slept over our house whenever Daddy
went away on a business trip. ~ Collin (4 yrs)
A-Gong gave me my own harmonica and showed me how to play it. He gave Collin and me yummy juice boxes whenever we went to their house. A-Gong also let me hold his cell phone when nobody else would. ~ Cary (2 yrs)
I loved when A-Gong played harmonica for me, crashed toy cars off the couch, and played the shell game with me. He always made me giggle. ~ Norah (1 yr)
I will never forget when Dad bought his portable bright yellow GPS unit years ago (he was the first person I knew that owned one). He loved it and took it everywhere and showed me every satellite position everywhere we went - trying to teach me the physics of how satellites worked. I was appalled when Dad brought it out and turned it on during our airplane takeoff to Hawaii! When I reminded him to turn it off as the flight attendant had explicitly said "turn off all electronics" - he just smiled and said "don't worry - these don't really disturb the flight instruments" and continued to use his GPS, albeit hidden under his jacket next to the airplane window. ~ Caroline
Dad's mind was always working, figuring out how to solve a problem or fix something. I would find pieces of scrap paper containing equations and calculations, lying all over the house. I remember him soliciting my help a few times to fix various home appliances. He would often take the extra effort to get something working exactly right, when I often thought "That is good enough". With Dad, there was no such thing as "Good enough", I often see this diligence in Caroline. ~ Andrew
I always loved visiting Dad at work – he always had cookies in his desk and let me play with the dummies. Sometimes he would take us to watch the cars crash into walls. I also remember when Dad insisted on driving me all the way to the school doors—instead of letting me off at the corner— in his flesh-colored Pinto. I am pretty sure that was an important lesson in humility and respect. ~ Kelly
One afternoon when watching a Tigers game with Dad, he explained the physics of hitting home runs, trying to give me pointers for my alumni softball league. By the time he got done using advanced calculus to explain the physics involved, the only thing that I could understand was there was a picture of a bat and ball on the page. ~ Andy
I will always remember A-Gong for being the fix-it man in our house. In the last year, he helped us fix our refrigerator and washing machine. He also assembled my basketball hoop when Daddy got frustrated. It was always fun when he and A-Ma slept over our house whenever Daddy
went away on a business trip. ~ Collin (4 yrs)
A-Gong gave me my own harmonica and showed me how to play it. He gave Collin and me yummy juice boxes whenever we went to their house. A-Gong also let me hold his cell phone when nobody else would. ~ Cary (2 yrs)
I loved when A-Gong played harmonica for me, crashed toy cars off the couch, and played the shell game with me. He always made me giggle. ~ Norah (1 yr)
I will never forget when Dad bought his portable bright yellow GPS unit years ago (he was the first person I knew that owned one). He loved it and took it everywhere and showed me every satellite position everywhere we went - trying to teach me the physics of how satellites worked. I was appalled when Dad brought it out and turned it on during our airplane takeoff to Hawaii! When I reminded him to turn it off as the flight attendant had explicitly said "turn off all electronics" - he just smiled and said "don't worry - these don't really disturb the flight instruments" and continued to use his GPS, albeit hidden under his jacket next to the airplane window. ~ Caroline
Dad's mind was always working, figuring out how to solve a problem or fix something. I would find pieces of scrap paper containing equations and calculations, lying all over the house. I remember him soliciting my help a few times to fix various home appliances. He would often take the extra effort to get something working exactly right, when I often thought "That is good enough". With Dad, there was no such thing as "Good enough", I often see this diligence in Caroline. ~ Andrew
I always loved visiting Dad at work – he always had cookies in his desk and let me play with the dummies. Sometimes he would take us to watch the cars crash into walls. I also remember when Dad insisted on driving me all the way to the school doors—instead of letting me off at the corner— in his flesh-colored Pinto. I am pretty sure that was an important lesson in humility and respect. ~ Kelly
One afternoon when watching a Tigers game with Dad, he explained the physics of hitting home runs, trying to give me pointers for my alumni softball league. By the time he got done using advanced calculus to explain the physics involved, the only thing that I could understand was there was a picture of a bat and ball on the page. ~ Andy
About Matthew Huang
Matthew was born in Taichung, Taiwan on October 13, 1941. He was the third of six children of Chin-Su and I-Mei Huang. Matthew received his undergraduate degree at Cheng Kung University in Taiwan. He immigrated to the United States in 1967 to attend graduate school at Oklahoma State University in Stillwater and received his PhD in mechanical engineering in 1972. While in Oklahoma, Matthew was introduced to Becky Tung, a graduate student of library science at the University of Oklahoma in Norman. Matthew immediately noticed Becky and won her heart by driving to visit her every weekend (a 90 mile trip), even in zero degree weather without a working car heater, to take her to the grocery store and type her papers. They married on March 21, 1970 in Oklahoma.
Matthew and Becky moved to Michigan in 1973. As an auto safety engineer for Ford Motor Company, Matthew designed air bag sensors and crashed a lot of dummies. He also taught at the University of Michigan in Dearborn, earned two patents for his air bag designs, and authored Vehicle Crash Mechanics in 2002. Matthew retired in 2002, and after Becky retired in 2007, they bought a second home in Arlington, Virginia to be close to their grandchildren. Matthew enjoyed playing the harmonica and piano and fixing anything
and everything for his family. In his younger years, Matthew received his visual flight license and flew a Cessna airplane. During college he was also a competitive gymnast (parallel bars and the pommel horse) and received a number of gold and silver medals from provincial competitions. He also rode his bicycle around the entire island of Taiwan.
Matthew is survived by his:
Loving wife, Becky
Daughters, Caroline and Kelly
Sons-in-law, Andrew Lu and Andrew Crist
Grandchildren, Collin (4y), Cary (2y), Norah (1y)
Mother, I-Mei
Brothers, Steve, Cliff, Claudio
Sisters, Chia-Hui and Lishun
26 nieces and nephews
Matthew Huang
born October 13, 1941
died September 25, 2009
Matthew and Becky moved to Michigan in 1973. As an auto safety engineer for Ford Motor Company, Matthew designed air bag sensors and crashed a lot of dummies. He also taught at the University of Michigan in Dearborn, earned two patents for his air bag designs, and authored Vehicle Crash Mechanics in 2002. Matthew retired in 2002, and after Becky retired in 2007, they bought a second home in Arlington, Virginia to be close to their grandchildren. Matthew enjoyed playing the harmonica and piano and fixing anything
and everything for his family. In his younger years, Matthew received his visual flight license and flew a Cessna airplane. During college he was also a competitive gymnast (parallel bars and the pommel horse) and received a number of gold and silver medals from provincial competitions. He also rode his bicycle around the entire island of Taiwan.
Matthew is survived by his:
Loving wife, Becky
Daughters, Caroline and Kelly
Sons-in-law, Andrew Lu and Andrew Crist
Grandchildren, Collin (4y), Cary (2y), Norah (1y)
Mother, I-Mei
Brothers, Steve, Cliff, Claudio
Sisters, Chia-Hui and Lishun
26 nieces and nephews
Matthew Huang
born October 13, 1941
died September 25, 2009
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)