My Great Aunt Pearl

I always thought I would get oral histories from my Chinese family here too. But the idea of "oral history" doesn't really exist here. And there's a different way of remembering when a lot of what you remember are tough times.

When I ask her if she has written down some of her stories, Great Aunt Pearl says she’d rather be happy now in life. She’d rather have people bring her food and gifts now than wait until she’s dead and gone. What will those things be worth to her then? When I’m dead, that’s it, she says.
She’s like my Granny who passed away a year and half ago. Except her body matches her gutsy mind. She just had surgery and she’s not infected and dying like both grandmothers did. She lies on her bed and when we need help, she pulls herself up, tells her Parkinson’s-forgetful husband not to bother, and shows us what to do. She admits she’s in pain, but she remains the strong and independent woman she’s always been. Her doctor told her not to do the operation without asking her children first—after all it was they who would have to care for her, he said. But she said no, she would decide to have it and hire a helper herself. Hiring help was something my grandparents could never agree to and so it’s my father who is unemployed and commuting once a week to take care of my grandfather. Strange that he’s the one in America.
Sometimes I do get stories from Aunt Pearl though. She told me this time that when my grandfather left China, even though they were in the same city at the time, she didn’t know he had gone until he was in Hong Kong. It was too dangerous for her to know, my grandfather would say.

So my grandfather snuck into Hong Kong in 1950 and then applied for scholarships to study Engineering abroad. He was accepted by Cornell University and met my grandmother there.

He didn't see his sister or the rest of his Chinese family again until 1979.