I am reading James’ piece again almost 2 years after it was first written. I find it as moving and funny as I did the first time I read it. And now I am inspired to share my own memories of Grandpa Cha (Gung Gung), which are of course somewhat different. I am sure that we each only saw a small piece of this great man whose accomplishments and presence were (and still are) larger-than-life.
I actually have rather few early memories of Gung Gung, even though I may technically have spent more time with him than James. Because our mother was so busy during our childhood years, we tended to spend a lot of time with Grandma Cha, also known as Nai Nai. And since she rarely left my grandfather’s side, I had the great fortune of staying with them often, and accompanying them both on various trips. Perhaps by virtue of being a girl, my relationship with Gung Gung in those days seemed to be more strongly colored by his relationships with Nai Nai and my own parents.
As a child, I remember being terrified of Gung Gung. While he never raised his hand or even voice to me, as far as I can recall, I was nevertheless deeply impressed by his punishment of my brother James. James was a rather rambunctious young lad, and when my parents were not around, no-one seemed to be able to control him except for Gung Gung. And while his punishments were never as harsh or severe as my mothers’, it was somehow more shameful to have incurred his wrath or to have disturbed his peace.
I remember Gung Gung taking great delight in cutting fruit to share with me at the dinner table – one of our favorite childhood jokes was cutting a banana in half and calling it a “banana split”. Gung Gung would love to watch nature documentaries on the English television channel; rather than wasting his time on entertainment alone, he chose to feed his voracious intellect and to practice his English listening comprehension. To this day, I feel a great sense of comfort when watching nature shows myself, almost unconsciously sensing that he is with me.
I visited Gung Gung’s African empire when I was about ten years old, passing through Switzerland, as was customary in those days. At that time I was too young to realize what it meant for a Chinaman from Hong Kong to have established such a strong foothold in that part of the world. And definitely too young to appreciate the enormous cultural and economic divide between the African ladies selling beads on the street in Kaduna, and the Swiss ladies behind the chocolate counter in Zurich. Although even at that age I did noticed that Swiss cows were brown and fat, while African ones were white, and so thin that ribs and shoulder blades poked out sharply.
While Gung Gung would often have me sit by him, and hold my hand, when I was a child, we seldom had long conversations. Even at my wedding, Gung Gung to me was still somewhere between an exalted deity, and a gentle bear to hug and kiss. It was not until years later, when I became established as a young doctor that I began to develop an adult relationship with him.
Perhaps one of my earliest memories of Gung Gung’s noticing me as an adult involved a visit that he and Nai Nai made to Seattle with Great-Uncle Bill Liu and his wife Great Auntie Cai-Fung in the late 1980s. They were traveling together and wanted to drive down to Portland to visit my Auntie Priscilla. Road-trips on American freeways were (and are) considered great fun because there are few other places in the world that can boast such wide and comfortable roads, lovely roadside scenery, and convenient road-side rest-stops. Nai Nai did not want Gung Gung or Great Uncle Bill to drive the 3-4 hours, but she was uncomfortable with having me drive. Her impression of my driving skill was held over from when I failed my driving test twice in California at the age of seventeen. (That particular episode had been perhaps the one major conflict she and I had ever had, and I am afraid I had been all rebellious teenager about it.)
For this particular trip, I was trying to point out that I was now in my twenties, had an impeccable driving record, and had made the trip to Portland several times. It was looking like a bit of a stalemate between me, Great Uncle Bill and Nai Nai when Gung Gung quite unexpectedly came to my support. He quietly stated that he felt confident I could do it, and as usual, that was that. Of course that was not really the end, in the sense that there was a nonstop stream of Shanghainese commentary and exclamation for the next 3 hours on the road, but nevertheless, we all made it without mishap.
During my residency training years in the early 1990s, when my own children were first infants and then toddlers, I would visit Gung Gung and Nai Nai at least once or twice a year. They were usually either in California, Hong Kong or Compton Manor. Each time I would spend the majority of the time with Nai Nai, chatting and visiting with her, but gradually and almost imperceptibly, I began to notice that Gung Gung would draw me into conversation about some health-related matter. It could be about a news article on a drug, or health condition that he had heard about.
The year that Gung Gung turned 80, he had a major heart attack in a rather remote part of China. He was fortunately able to summon an old friend and long-time physician Dr Don Harrison to his bedside, but there were definite limitations to what could be safely offered in rural China at that point. I was still in residency at UCLA at the time, but I was able to see him shortly afterwards when he returned to Hong Kong. I remember having several long conversations with him at that point about health strategies for prolonging his life. He seemed for the first time to feel his own mortality, and was determined to focus his powerful will on the question of how to best take care of his own health. From that point on and for the next 12 years, while Gung Gung still came to work at the office every day, his office was redesigned to accommodate a full-incline lounger for naps, and a treadmill for doing exercise.
On the occasion of his ninetieth birthday, a number of the third generation grandkids (3Gs) visited Gung Gung’s birth village of Yuen Hua with him for the first time. Although I had often heard it mentioned in stories about Gung Gung growing up, I had never fully realized the extent of the desperate poverty of his family, and indeed, village life. Gung Gung and his sister were raised in the tiny 3-room ancestral house that also housed his five half brothers and their families. The ancient stone and clay chimney stove in the kitchen had not been modernized, but was partially restored. The ancient family burial plot with its circle of worn gravestones and tall pine trees was particularly moving to visit. Gung Gung was not an emotionally demonstrative man, but this occasion I could tell that he felt both deeply content and yet also very sad. On that trip, Gung Gung traveled with his usual entourage of Chinese dignitaries and officials to see famous Hangzhou sights, but seemed particularly delighted to chat with the oarsman who manned his boat on Xi Hu lake, who spoke his native Yuen Hua village dialect.
The year before Gung Gung became ill, I was pleased to accompany him on a trip to Sendai, Japan, to view the annual cherry blossom festival. I saw yet another side of this complex man. Gung Gung had learned some Japanese during his visits to Japan in the early years of textile development with Great-Grandpa Liu (Nai Nai’s father).
He was deeply appreciative of many aspects of the Japanese culture, including their strong technical proclivity, aesthetic sense, and endless perfectionism. However, his appetite was clearly Chinese – after a protracted search for fatty maguro tuna fresh from the fishing boat, he promptly bought several pounds and wanted to eat them on the spot. Fortunately Nai Nai and my mom were able to convince him to have the fish carved properly into sashimi by the hotel chef that night.
Gung Gung lived for just over a year after he was initially diagnosed with widely metastatic non-small cell carcinoma of the lung. He fought perhaps the bravest and toughest battle of his life during that year. For a man who had rarely known anything but the best of good health, he seemed depressed and even disgusted by his own weakness. But he rarely admitted to pain or fatigue, and never allowed himself or others to indulge in a single moment of pity. He faced his fears and his disease with characteristic fierce determination, hoping for the best while preparing for the worst.
In the last few days at the hospital, Gung Gung remained alert and aware. He demanded to be moved out of the intensive care unit (ICU), despite the fact that this might compromise his care. I believe this was because he could see how much it frightened our family members, and particularly Nai Nai, to see him there. At one point, he demanded to be moved home to Shouson Hill Road. Because his speech had become slurred and difficult to understand, several different family members and doctors came to ask him if he understood the consequences of such a move (he would likely die very quickly at home, or even on the way home). It must have been frustrating for him to not be able to communicate clearly, and yet I distinctly remember being incredibly impressed with his single-mindedness, even speaking in English to make sure the doctors and everyone could not misunderstand him.
I said goodbye to Gung Gung for the last time one May afternoon, on my way to the airport. He and I both knew he did not have long to live, and I’m glad he was insisting by then that my mom and uncles and aunties stay at his bedside. On the flight back to the US, shortly before landing, I raised the window shade to reveal a gorgeous sunrise over the clouds. As I sat on the plane admiring the colors, I was suddenly overcome by an incredible sense of peace and contentment that was mixed somehow with grief. When my plane landed, my husband and kids greeted me at the gate with the news that he had died about 2 hours earlier. At that moment I knew that Gung Gung’s spirit had come to bid me a final farewell.
I do not know if I will live to know another man in this lifetime who has accomplished as much, with such humility and humor, and who had the ability to inspire such tremendous respect and love from those who were privileged to know him. What I do know is that I will always be grateful to have had Gung Gung in my life, and that I will continue to honor his spirit by demanding the best of myself, and by living life to the fullest.
Tags: CCM, ChaChaCha, ChaChiMing, G3Chas