00:00:01.670 - 00:00:18.120

Okay. We can start? Yes. Mm-hmm. I was born in Hangzhou, China, in 1937. My father was a pilot in the

00:00:18.250 - 00:00:29.850

Chinese Air Force. Uh before I was born, he got sent to Guangzhou . They have uh, a

00:00:33.340 - 00:00:50.030

um…school there to train the new pilot, but my mother waited, and here I was born. So when I was two weeks old, we left Hangzhou to go to Canton .

00:00:50.440 - 00:01:04.940

But the war started in China in 1937. We were only in Guangzhou for about a year. Then we moved inland.

00:01:08.000 - 00:01:26.030

Then we grew up in Sichuan . At the time, things were very difficult. Uh what I mean is, you don't get a lot of the things from the outside,

00:01:27.260 - 00:01:45.720

and a lot of the people flew the hump to get things into China because Japan took over all the coastline of China. And the Great Britain closed the Burma Highway.

00:01:47.140 - 00:02:06.180

Things just couldn't get in from anywhere. And we had like meat twice a week, but we had lots of the vegetables. Uh we didn't have electricity.

00:02:07.070 - 00:02:21.520

Oh, there was electricity, but it's for military use only. Uh my father got an order in 1945.

00:02:22.620 - 00:02:43.500

He was going to take a group of the young students to be trained to be pilot in Randolph Field, San Antonio, Texas. Uh but before they left, the war

00:02:43.500 - 00:02:59.990

was over, so they said the way they were going to go, which was to go through India to Saudi Arabia and then go to Atlantic Ocean, land—landed

00:03:03.220 - 00:03:17.370

in uh Norfolk, Virginia. Then they would take the train to San Antonio, Texas. They said what—you didn't have to do that

00:03:17.710 - 00:03:35.410

anymore—uh what you could do was, since the war was over, you could just board a ship in Shanghai and they would go to Seattle, Washington.

00:03:37.100 - 00:03:54.800

So that's what they were going to do. At the time, he said, ‘What you all’ means his family—‘need to leave Sichuan,’ because when he wasn't there, my

00:03:54.800 - 00:04:13.920

mother had to do everything, and it was difficult to get the ticket for to go back to the coast that's where we were from. So we rode the first ship

00:04:15.280 - 00:04:32.770

down the Yangtze River to go to Nanking, but when we got to Chongqing, they said we couldn't go because there were mines. Japan put all the mines down the Yangtze

00:04:33.350 - 00:04:46.860

River. It wasn't safe to go on the ship. So they would sweep the mines before we could go.

00:04:47.510 - 00:05:03.790

So we waited for about a month. Then we went back to Nanking. But the problems come—was when we went to Nanking, there was no school.

00:05:05.530 - 00:05:22.320

The government wasn't back yet, and my father had to leave, so he left, and the—we were in Nanking. Nanking was the capital

00:05:24.920 - 00:05:41.470

at the time, and uh…he came back about a year. There was a funny story—I thought. We were in Nanking.

00:05:43.060 - 00:06:03.900

There was a group of the American reporters—came, wanted to film us. But they said, ‘Well, here, come out of the room.’ We said, ‘What you wanted us to do?’

00:06:04.870 - 00:06:20.020

They said, ‘Take your shoes and socks off.’ So we took our shoes and socks off, went back into the classroom, so they were filming. Now, I know what they wanted to do.

00:06:20.500 - 00:06:39.330

They wanted to tell the Americans, the Chinese children didn't have shoes and socks. And then I got picked by the uh school to go—they wanted the—some children

00:06:41.150 - 00:07:01.620

for interview. So I was there. Uh some—they brought their translator—my teacher went with me. They asked me where—what did my father do. I told them, ‘My father, at the time, was a lieutenant

00:07:02.670 - 00:07:17.780

colonel in the Chinese Air Force.’ They said, ‘Where did he station at?’ I said, ‘Oh, he was in the U.S.

00:07:17.780 - 00:07:35.890

at the time.’ They said, ‘Where?’ I said, ‘In a place called Randolph Field, San Antonio, Texas.’ They said, ‘What did he do there?’ I said, ‘He just took a group of the

00:07:37.210 - 00:07:52.280

people to learn how to fly.’ They said, ‘Cut, cut, cut!’ So they said, ‘This is it.’ I asked the teacher what did I do? I'm sure what I said

00:07:52.280 - 00:08:07.380

wasn't what they had in mind. At the time I didn't know who was doing it. They had a banner. That's before I even learned any English.

00:08:08.310 - 00:08:22.850

I said, ‘Oh, you know what? They had the—like the ‘S’ —we have a cookie we call the ‘S’ cookie—they have the ‘S’ and they

00:08:22.960 - 00:08:41.960

have the ear without the tail . They have a backwards mong, you know you draw a mong. You put it down, that's CBS! So anyway, they didn't interview me.

00:08:43.270 - 00:09:03.710

I think that's already the time the Communist was coming. And they wanted to sell the Communist, I say, land reform. And uh if you

00:09:04.110 - 00:09:22.470

have some kind of connection with the U.S., I don't think that's what they wanted. Anyway, Nanking was a very uh strange

00:09:22.580 - 00:09:40.280

place. We lived better, but I didn't like it one bit. Uh but I finished elementary school there. I got into a junior high

00:09:40.900 - 00:09:57.050

that was supposed to be the best junior high in the nation, but we all had to stay in the dorm. Uh I was eleven years old.

00:09:57.680 - 00:10:09.430

I went there. They said their kids have the best scores of anybody. But why wouldn't it?

00:10:10.730 - 00:10:28.310

We had the early morning studying period. That's like from 7 to 8:30. Then, you know, we have the exercise, everything, then we

00:10:28.310 - 00:10:38.090

have the regular class. Then we had dinner. Then we had another studying period.

00:10:38.770 - 00:10:52.810

The teachers were there. You didn't understand. They would help you. So we learned a lot. I only went for half a year in that

00:10:52.920 - 00:11:11.450

school because things were getting bad. My mother took three younger children to go to Taiwan. My father left, was

00:11:12.490 - 00:11:31.500

in Nanking with my sister and I. And one morning they came in, said, ‘There wouldn't be any class, would be no breakfast. Y’all have to find a way to go home.’ I said,

00:11:33.890 - 00:11:49.360

‘Uh-oh. Well, okay. No problem.’ I would go to call—to begin with, I called my father to come to get me. But there was no telephone.

00:11:49.820 - 00:12:08.000

The phone line was cut. And uh I said, ‘Well, I can take the bus home.’ I went to the bus station. It said, ‘On strike.’ So I

00:12:11.180 - 00:12:30.550

said, ‘Well, what do I do now?’ I said, ‘Okay, I would take a rickshaw, because once I get home uh—we have a nanny at home, she stayed with my sister and I—I

00:12:32.190 - 00:12:50.440

said, ‘She would pay the rickshaw.’ But, there were rickshaws. They were not going to take a kid. They had more business than they could handle. So there was my friend and I.

00:12:52.150 - 00:13:05.900

She said, ‘What we do now?’ I said, ‘Well, we would go—we would walk. That's the only way.’ She said, ‘Oh, okay.’ So we walked.

00:13:07.530 - 00:13:25.870

Nanking—it's already got the people demonstrating everything. They said, ‘Yankee, go home.’ Okay. That was— they said,

00:13:26.480 - 00:13:44.300

an American soldier raped a Chinese student. Years later, we find out that was all fake. But it got the

00:13:44.360 - 00:14:05.390

emotions up, got all the people say, ‘Yankee, go home.’ You got thousands and thousands of the people on the street saying, ‘Yankee, go home.’ So I said,

00:14:05.430 - 00:14:22.620

‘Well, good thing my father didn't know, my mother wasn't there.’ Nobody knew we were walking on the street with the street in the shape like that. We finally got home,

00:14:24.180 - 00:14:39.640

and the nanny was there. She said, ‘How come you are home? What happened to the school?’ We said, ‘There was no school, and we had to come back.’ So she said, ‘Oh, okay.’

00:14:41.790 - 00:15:00.830

And uh at night, there was no electricity. They already bombed the, you know, the light, the power plant. So it's not you don't have electricity.

00:15:02.070 - 00:15:18.730

It's like there was no electricity even on the streets, you know. And no telephone—they cut all the telephone wires. Finally, my father sent somebody there.

00:15:19.840 - 00:15:40.530

He said, ‘You know, I don't know when, when I could get you all on a plane to fly out, go.’ Uh because every flight

00:15:40.810 - 00:15:58.410

from Nanking was full, he said, ‘I just don't know when you could go.’ So we said, ‘Oh, well, where were we going to go?’ He sent a note. He said, ‘Your mother, at the time

00:15:58.490 - 00:16:13.530

was in Taiwan. Just go. They'll know what to do.’ So one day, he did send a car. So my sister, I, and the nanny, we got to the

00:16:13.760 - 00:16:27.940

airport, got on the plane. Every plane was full to the capacity. We went to Taiwan. And Taiwan was

00:16:29.850 - 00:16:47.210

really nice. It's very tropical. It was uh, you know, you see banana trees, and you see the coconut

00:16:48.710 - 00:17:08.900

growing, but we went to the air force base there, and we said, ‘ We were looking for my mother.’ They said, well, they knew where we would, you know—we had uh housing—they

00:17:09.870 - 00:17:22.490

had housing we could uh we could go. They said, ‘Your mother be there.’ So we got to Taiwan. Taiwan was uh a

00:17:24.780 - 00:17:40.280

lot like Houston. Okay, except it never, in the southern part, where the Air Force base was—was not—it would never freeze.

00:17:42.820 - 00:17:56.370

It's more tropical, maybe, than here. When you walk on the street you see the banana trees, coconut trees. And here it’s, you know, it's not that tropical.

00:17:59.380 - 00:18:15.370

And uh it--it's very nice in Taiwan. Finally, my father came, you know. So that was 1949.

00:18:18.270 - 00:18:38.910

I was in Taiwan for ten years. From the seventh grade, and here I finished college. And once I

00:18:39.040 - 00:19:01.390

finished college, a lot of the people said, ‘Would you like to go to the U.S. for further education?’ I said, ‘Yes, I would.’ And my father said, ‘Go to Texas.

00:19:02.080 - 00:19:21.400

Texas is a very good place.’ Because he was in San Antonio, you know, after the war. He said, ‘The people are nice, and uh I think if you like a place, I think

00:19:21.520 - 00:19:40.390

you would like Texas.’ So I came at the end of 1958. Um we—I had a student visa to come.

00:19:43.010 - 00:20:05.630

Now, couple of the funny thing is, I'm sure they had standardized test at the American Embassy for the students. I had about a hundred questions for the English test.

00:20:07.660 - 00:20:24.150

Now, I remember two of them because first of all, one of the questions was uh, ‘What do you use to make coleslaw?’ I

00:20:25.360 - 00:20:41.240

never had coleslaw all my life , so I had no idea what you use for coleslaw, so I couldn't answer that question.

00:20:42.330 - 00:21:00.190

The second one was, ‘Which state in the U.S. has the most Indians?’ I had no idea, so I thought, well,

00:21:02.460 - 00:21:18.740

I, I just guessed at it. I just wanted to get any score on it, so I put down Indiana, because I—since I didn't know, I said, ‘Well, that's a shot anyway.’

00:21:22.730 - 00:21:40.790

Now, when I had the interview, I kind of complained about the written test, but the counsel who interviewed me, he said, ‘Oh that's no

00:21:40.880 - 00:22:01.730

problem. You passed.’ He said, ‘You are going to Texas.’ I said, ‘Yes.’ He said, ‘I'm from Texas.’ I said, ‘Houston?’ He said, ‘No, Amarillo.’ I said, ‘Oh.’ I didn't know where Amarillo was, but he

00:22:01.730 - 00:22:16.060

was very nice. He said, ‘It didn't matter if you miss a couple of the questions. We just want a passing grade.’

00:22:17.320 - 00:22:37.180

And--but the people who worked at the Embassy, I remembered it's a Hispanic lady. She was about as bad as

00:22:37.750 - 00:22:55.770

she could be, and uh I gave her the pictures to put on the passport. She said, ‘It's not right.’ I said, ‘I went to get passport

00:22:56.360 - 00:23:16.720

pictures.’ She said, ‘Because you have a border on the picture. They want a picture without border.’ I said, ‘If you loan me a pair of scissors, I just cut the borders off.’ I said, ‘Or you could do it.’ She said, ‘I'm not doing that for

00:23:16.720 - 00:23:33.410

you.’ I said, ‘I'll do it myself.’ I cut the borders off and uh asked her whether that was okay. She measured it,

00:23:33.620 - 00:23:47.730

measured it again. She said, ‘I suppose.’ So, anyway, I came here, in 1958, at the end of

00:23:49.570 - 00:24:11.520

‘58. And I liked Houston from the beginning, but when I came, I saw in Taiwan, I saw lots of the commercials about the U.S. I said, ‘Well,

00:24:13.420 - 00:24:27.750

I wanted to go to Houston by bus.’ People say, ‘Fly. You'll be more comfortable.’ I said, ‘No.’ I wanted to see the country, so I came here by bus.

00:24:27.810 - 00:24:44.570

I went to the bus station downtown. There was—I had a host family. They picked me up from the bus station,

00:24:46.410 - 00:25:03.730

and they asked me uh where I was going. I said, ‘I was going to get a drink of water.’ They said, ‘Here, here is the water fountain.’ I said,

00:25:03.760 - 00:25:23.820

‘No, I wanted to go there.’ They said, ‘Why?’ I said, ‘Because, that water fountain says ‘Colored’.’ And uh they said, ‘Why do you want to go there?’ I said, ‘Because I wanted to

00:25:23.860 - 00:25:40.500

find out what color is the ‘Colored’ water fountain.’ I said, ‘Is it red? Orange?’ So they were laughing. They said, ‘No, that's not what it meant.’

00:25:43.810 - 00:26:00.070

I said, ‘What does it mean? It says ‘Colored’.’ They said, ‘We'll explain it to you.’ So that was 1958.

00:26:00.260 - 00:26:15.800

That's when I came. I went to U of H. There were very few Chinese students. And uh I switched

00:26:17.480 - 00:26:35.710

my major because in Taiwan I majored in economics, and uh a lot of the people say that's where you go to get your

00:26:35.840 - 00:26:50.880

law degree . I wasn't prepared to go get a law degree. I said, ‘Okay, I minored in accounting, so I would

00:26:51.050 - 00:27:15.240

just go for accounting.’ Besides, the numbers means the same. It's not like, you know, the language. So, I went to U of H. Now uh, I

00:27:15.240 - 00:27:33.550

met Ed. Then we got married. He finished Rice. He went to the service. Uh I went to Huntsville,

00:27:33.760 - 00:27:52.350

Alabama. At the time, I guess Houston was a lot different from Huntsville, Alabama. Even though people were real nice in Huntsville,

00:27:53.650 - 00:28:06.170

but you could see a lot of the oldest slave, the, the things they--that reminded you.

00:28:10.870 - 00:28:33.580

Anyway, we were there for two years, then we came back. Okay, y'all want to ask any questions? Um I was wondering, um at what point did you start learning English? Okay, we learned English in the—from

00:28:34.450 - 00:28:48.610

the fifth grade. Uh now, all the way through junior high and high school. Now, in college, the

00:28:49.130 - 00:29:06.080

text was half-English, half-Chinese, so we used the uh the—like my major was economics, and you had to have all the text in

00:29:07.730 - 00:29:27.060

economics in English. Uh also, we had some professors. They are Catholic nuns and uh priests. They would go to National Taiwan to teach.

00:29:28.870 - 00:29:48.420

Uh of course, they would speak English to us. So language wasn't that big of a uh problem, except some slangs, we didn't really learn, and

00:29:49.250 - 00:30:03.910

here I got, here. You said that your mom took your younger siblings to Taiwan. Why didn't you go with her? Okay, the reason I didn't go with

00:30:03.990 - 00:30:24.000

her—my father kept on thinking, things were going to get better. The Communists were not going to come so quick, and uh I was the—the

00:30:24.730 - 00:30:43.970

junior high I went to, was the best school in the nation, and uh he said, ‘If you left, could you get back in?’ I said, ‘I don't

00:30:44.630 - 00:31:00.990

know.’ So he said, ‘Well, just wait. Just go to school here. And here things get real bad, I think I can get you out.’ So good thing he did.

00:31:01.080 - 00:31:14.560

I actually only stayed about maybe, uh one semester.

00:31:18.370 - 00:31:34.980

Did you go to school at all during uh World War II? Or… Oh, yes, yes. Yes, I went to elementary school. Uh I went—see, I was born in

00:31:35.040 - 00:31:53.210

1937, and uh I was a year ahead, so when the war was over, uh I was starting—that's ‘45.

00:31:55.770 - 00:32:10.870

I didn't go to most of the fourth grade because we went to Nanking. There was no school. And then uh as soon as the school got, you know,

00:32:12.660 - 00:32:30.430

back, I—I mean, they started the elementary school, I went. I just skipped the fourth grade. Other than your um father coming to Texas, did you have any other

00:32:30.620 - 00:32:45.720

connection to America before coming here? Well, my uncle, that's my mother's brother, was going to UT to get

00:32:47.330 - 00:33:00.730

his PhD., but he didn't get it. He went back to China. He never even went to Taiwan. What was it like to be one

00:33:00.770 - 00:33:15.440

of the only Chinese students in Houston at the time? What? What was it like to be one of the only Chinese students in Houston? Oh, I wasn't the only Chinese student. There were very few, but I wasn't the only one.

00:33:17.370 - 00:33:33.280

What was it like? Uh actually, I find the people very friendly. Uh I went to live with one of the professor here.

00:33:34.180 - 00:33:49.030

She taught French here. Her husband was an eye doctor. And uh they were real nice. Uh and at school, I think we

00:33:49.460 - 00:34:09.950

had less than a dozen uh Chinese students. Did you encounter any racism or any discrimination? No, no, no. Actually, it's more like they explained to me,

00:34:11.820 - 00:34:33.180

uh why I shouldn't drink from the ‘Colored’ water fountain. I said, ‘What's the difference?’ They said, well, in Texas, at the time, you didn't. So I said, ‘But I'm

00:34:33.950 - 00:34:56.600

not Caucasian.’ They said, ‘But you are not black.’ So somehow I think Chinese was considered more um—anyway, more on the Caucasian side, because all the

00:34:56.650 - 00:35:10.400

kids would go to school—even elementary school—in white schools, not black schools. What was Houston like when you first got here?

00:35:12.100 - 00:35:32.400

It was a lot smaller. And uh people were very friendly. I always find people very friendly. And uh um just about

00:35:32.800 - 00:35:49.240

every weekend, I had an invitation to go spend either half a day or whole day with a family, and they would take me

00:35:49.790 - 00:36:06.250

to the rodeo or things. I just find everybody was real friendly. How did you take care of expenses for college? Did your parents pay for it?

00:36:06.400 - 00:36:19.210

Or did you work when you were in college? Okay, um you mean in Taiwan or here? Um in, in Houston. Okay, in Houston.

00:36:19.980 - 00:36:37.450

When I first came, my parents gave me some money. But they did tell me I had to work my way. They couldn't pay the tuition, everything,

00:36:38.460 - 00:36:56.770

living expenses for me. And uh I stayed with this professor—her husband was an eye doctor. Uh she said, ‘Well, come to stay with us.’ They

00:36:58.870 - 00:37:15.930

have two small children in school. She said, ‘You could go to school.’ They also have a maid. She said—then she said, ‘When the maid went home’ —she said, ‘If’ —she was a French professor at

00:37:17.080 - 00:37:33.400

U of H—she said, ‘I could trust you to stay with the kids.’ So I had no living expenses. Uh now, the tuition,

00:37:34.730 - 00:37:51.260

I worked some, and uh I made enough money for the tuition. Where did you work? Okay. Um you all interview

00:37:51.260 - 00:38:02.920

the Jane Gee, right? Mm-hmm. Her husband had a Chinese restaurant. At the time, was the biggest Chinese restaurant

00:38:05.150 - 00:38:21.470

there. And uh I asked him whether I could have a job there. He said, ‘Oh good. My bookkeeper was leaving.’ He

00:38:22.040 - 00:38:34.960

said, ‘You said, what's your major?’ I said, ‘Accounting.’ He said, ‘Good! Come, do the books!’ So I worked there in the summer. I made

00:38:35.470 - 00:38:54.120

enough money to pay for the tuition. How did you meet Jane and Albert Gee? Okay, that's uh—the reason I met them was, at the

00:38:54.380 - 00:39:11.550

time, at U of H, the student advisor, his name was Mr. Therrington . He had a um restaurant on the side,

00:39:13.980 - 00:39:31.160

that's—you know, they—they sell—his wife was from Mexico, so they had the—a Mexican restaurant. And when I went to

00:39:31.250 - 00:39:45.850

ask him, ‘Where do you think I might be able to get a job?’ He said, ‘Oh, I have a friend. His name is Albert Gee. Uh here, here is

00:39:48.460 - 00:40:06.370

uh the phone number. Give him a call. See if he has something you could do.’ So I called Albert up, asked him if he had something I could do in the

00:40:06.410 - 00:40:22.460

summer.’ He said, ‘What's your major?’ I said, ‘Accounting.’ He said, ‘Great! That's what I need!’ So, you know— so I went and had an

00:40:22.460 - 00:40:35.210

interview just like the regular, yeah. And you did bookkeeping, or what was your… Bookkeeping. Okay. I was in the accounting department.

00:40:36.590 - 00:40:50.130

Did you call any other companies when you were job hunting? I actually worked for a CPA before that. It didn’t work out. The reason was I was going to go get to CPA—take

00:40:51.540 - 00:41:08.710

the CPA exam. They had a requirement: you had to have some kind of the experience. But uh it just wasn’t work I

00:41:08.710 - 00:41:30.450

really was looking for, and uh at Baroid that was more, you know. Uh did you experience any racism or discrimination at work? No. No. Where did you live after

00:41:30.600 - 00:41:43.980

you got out of college? Did you stop living with the professor? Um, we got married, actually, before that, but Ed was in Huntsville,

00:41:44.210 - 00:42:02.750

Alabama. And finally I was going to go to Huntsville, so I left. Is this why you quit your Baroid job? No. I didn’t even get a job until we

00:42:02.750 - 00:42:15.240

came back to Houston. Um, when Ed was getting his PhD, I was working at Baroid. Did you work in Huntsville?

00:42:17.430 - 00:42:35.790

I did have a job in Huntsville. Huntsville is a very, um, different place from Houston.

00:42:37.800 - 00:42:53.610

It’s more inland. I guess, um, you all heard about White Sands and Redstone. Redstone is Huntsville, okay.

00:42:54.050 - 00:43:13.420

That’s where the beginning of the missile—they developed the, you know, the missile. Ed was there after Rice, okay. So he was working for Dr.

00:43:13.420 - 00:43:32.450

von Braun, you know, the German scientist who developed the bomb to bomb London, and they brought over a lot of the German scientists to Huntsville.

00:43:34.440 - 00:43:51.540

So I got a job at Montgomery Ward because I couldn’t get a job—a government

00:43:51.680 - 00:44:07.710

job. And there that was mostly what it was. You had to have your citizenship; I only had a green card. So I went to work for Montgomery Ward.

00:44:07.760 - 00:44:23.570

Um we were there—he was there for two years. I was only there for one year, then we came back. We both decided that Huntsville wasn’t the

00:44:23.570 - 00:44:41.980

place we wanted to be, so we came back to Houston. And, just wondering, but I’m not sure if it worked this way back then, but I thought that when you married a citizen you became a citizen.

00:44:42.770 - 00:44:55.640

Did you..? You don’t automatically become a citizen. You have to go through the process.

00:44:57.730 - 00:45:14.400

I knew they would give it to me—the green card to me, for sure because first of all, Ed was born here, second, he was in the service,

00:45:15.580 - 00:45:30.860

and they gave it to me. But I went for the interview, they also told me I took away a slot in like uh

00:45:31.630 - 00:45:47.820

2012 or something like that because the Chinese quota was a hundred and five a year, and, and they put everything on top of each other.

00:45:48.470 - 00:46:03.390

They said, ‘We have to give it to you, but we also subtract one,’ they just kept on going. And a hundred-and-five is not very many.

00:46:07.100 - 00:46:26.540

How was working in Alabama different from working in Houston? Well, in—I guess in Houston, even back then, people were more friendly, and

00:46:26.850 - 00:46:44.140

in Alabama, I was surprised uh that uh I got a job because I wasn’t qualified to get a civil service job, I wasn’t a citizen.

00:46:45.150 - 00:47:02.360

And uh the product company, I went to an accounting firm, it’s called Ernst & Ernst. And I handed in the résumé, the

00:47:02.360 - 00:47:18.050

man said, he didn’t even look at it, he said, ‘Okay, I want to let you know, no matter what your résumé says, you’re not getting

00:47:18.050 - 00:47:37.710

this job.’ I said, ‘Why?’ He said, ‘You know, because we audit all the books of northern Alabama and southern Tennessee, if we take you, that

00:47:37.790 - 00:47:55.870

means you’re going out with three men. And we never could afford to hire a woman with the men.’ He said, ‘So I won’t even look at your résumé.

00:47:55.940 - 00:48:09.890

I’ll just say I’m very sorry.’ And once I went to Montgomery Ward, um they didn’t say that. I was hired.

00:48:09.890 - 00:48:26.140

So you had a family in Alabama, right? Or did you have a child when you were in Alabama? Yes. Yes. My daughter was born in Alabama.

00:48:26.980 - 00:48:40.720

That’s a funny thing. She wanted to get a passport, and uh she went to get—to ask, they said they couldn’t find the record.

00:48:41.730 - 00:48:59.140

She said, ‘But I was born there!’ Finally, they said, ‘Oh, you were born at an army base. That’s a separate thing.’ So they sent it, finally, but uh see, we didn’t know.

00:48:59.430 - 00:49:16.430

We just thought, it’s Huntsville, Alabama. They said ‘no.’ Can you tell us about how you got into homebuilding? Okay! Once,

00:49:18.100 - 00:49:37.470

uh like I said, my son was born, uh I didn’t want a full-time job, so we also bought some houses in West University.

00:49:40.140 - 00:49:55.110

That got to be kind of—not a good economic plan because the tax was so high, and the houses

00:49:56.260 - 00:50:11.490

were old. When people first moved in, they rent from you, they are very happy— they were very happy. They would say, ‘Oh, that’s a house in West University,’ but

00:50:13.640 - 00:50:29.080

once they said, ‘Well, this is— this was the rent,’ the rent was too high. But they didn’t know how much tax we had to pay. We made very little money.

00:50:29.740 - 00:50:50.710

Most of the rent that came in had to go for tax because West University was getting better and better, and I happened to have a renter at the time. And he also was very

00:50:50.790 - 00:51:07.180

good with everything about building. He said, ‘Well, you know what?’ He said, ‘Instead of selling the

00:51:08.810 - 00:51:25.910

rental house,’ which all I could get was the land value. He said ‘If you would, I would come to work for you, and we could build houses.’ And I had seen

00:51:27.210 - 00:51:45.580

his work, so I thought he was very good. So I said, ‘Let’s try one.’ Uh he said, ‘If you didn’t sell?’ I said, ‘Well, we could move in with the land, you know, we,

00:51:47.270 - 00:52:01.320

we could move in,’ so he said, ‘Okay, let’s try one.’ So he worked for me, and I uh started to build a house.

00:52:01.370 - 00:52:18.920

But even before it’s finished people would say, ‘Could we buy this house?’ We said, ‘Yes,’ and uh they—so we said, ‘If we build one at a time,

00:52:19.030 - 00:52:33.080

and uh people didn’t buy it, we needed a house anyway.’ But we didn’t get any. Everybody bought you know the houses. So— And you said

00:52:35.590 - 00:52:50.790

that you designed the houses? Do you have a background in architecture? No. I just, like, I drew the plan for this house.

00:52:50.790 - 00:53:08.500

I just feel, as a woman, we know what we really want in a house, and we can plan for the future. Uh so I, I still had to

00:53:08.500 - 00:53:26.680

have an architect to draw the final plan, but instead of for him to put down everything I could sketch out everything what we wanted. And uh they would uh,

00:53:28.460 - 00:53:43.460

you know, draw the final plan. You know, like here, we say that we build this house; this is probably it, so when we build it we want to

00:53:43.460 - 00:54:02.040

be able to put an elevator in the front. So we put the stairs in the back. Um you know, that’s pretty much the way

00:54:02.400 - 00:54:18.610

we thought of what we wanted and what would a woman want in the kitchen? You know? And were you still working when you decided to start home building? Where you still with Baroid?

00:54:19.250 - 00:54:34.710

No. Um I worked about uh six years, less than six years. That’s the time between my two children.

00:54:36.990 - 00:54:51.540

Uh then, once my son was born, I never want—I never had an outside job outside of just to rent houses and home building.

00:54:54.320 - 00:55:11.530

So homebuilding, I guess, you just do that on your own time, then? Like you don’t have a set schedule, or how did you manage your day? That’s correct. Um what I did was—okay, since I did have a contractor,

00:55:11.670 - 00:55:29.140

a um somebody who would do good work, you know, so he would come, we would talk about it and uh from the foundation

00:55:30.160 - 00:55:48.630

up, then we go step by step. And when you were homebuilding, did you stop at just replacing the houses on properties your owned- Yes. Or did you just design homes for other people as well?

00:55:48.840 - 00:56:07.100

No. No. Would you say that your clientele was Chinese, or was it just anybody who wanted a house? There wasn’t even one Chinese. You know, the value in West University—the land

00:56:09.510 - 00:56:29.930

was very expensive, so the people who wanted to live in West University, they liked the convenience of inside the loop. They wanted to be

00:56:29.930 - 00:56:45.710

close to the medical center, to Rice. Um, a lot of the Chinese, those are not that important. They are way rich.

00:56:45.710 - 00:56:58.540

They didn’t really care, you know. And you said that you’re a part of the Braes Republican Women? Yes. Can you tell us about your involvement with that?

00:56:59.300 - 00:57:19.180

Yes. We lived uh on Durness, which is two streets that way. Uh before, let’s see, we moved in about 1967.

00:57:20.490 - 00:57:40.520

We moved here in about 1999, um so when I was walking, there was a neighbor. Every sign she put out I said, ‘That’s

00:57:40.560 - 00:57:59.320

the person I’m going to vote for.’ And uh I wanted the, the people we elect to be responsible, to have the

00:57:59.390 - 00:58:15.280

people who needed the help, but I don’t want them to give away, uh or to borrow, to pass out uh, you know, everybody’s money

00:58:15.440 - 00:58:30.860

just because they can. And so I said, well you know, I read about the sign she put in her yard, and those were the people I wanted to vote for.

00:58:31.800 - 00:58:52.810

So finally, I met her, and then she talked to us and she said, well, you know uh, ‘Could you take me home?’ we said, ‘Okay.’ Actually, she

00:58:52.810 - 00:59:06.370

drove, but she just left her car there so she could uh come back with us. And she told us uh there was a republican women’s club in the neighborhood.

00:59:07.430 - 00:59:23.040

She said, ‘Come to visit us one time.’ I did go, and the speakers they got, we still do, the ones, you know—we

00:59:24.720 - 00:59:42.800

couldn’t invite everybody, but once—when the primary is over, we only invite the Republican candidates. Now, I kind of feel they are

00:59:43.750 - 01:00:02.730

more responsible— some of them are, not all, but at least what they tell about I agree more. I fear that if you hand out everything you just make them,

01:00:03.800 - 01:00:20.540

you know, say, ‘That’s really not worth anything.’ If you work for it, it’s worth more. And this woman that you—he woman with the

01:00:21.190 - 01:00:29.070

signs that you voted for? What kind of woman was she? Was she Caucasian? Yes. And are you guys still friends?

01:00:30.290 - 01:00:46.480

She died. She was the wife of Dr. . I don’t know if you heard the name or not. He was the team doctor for the

01:00:46.480 - 01:01:03.230

Astros. And she was quite a unique lady. She was—and she lived just a short block

01:01:03.900 - 01:01:23.470

from us, when we lived on Durness. So I passed by her house a lot. And just going back to your education, can you tell us some of the things that were similar and different about

01:01:23.600 - 01:01:36.770

education in Houston and your education back in Taiwan? Very much the same. Very similar? Right. But I didn’t go to Taiwan until I was in the seventh

01:01:37.480 - 01:01:54.060

grade. I was in Mainland China, and in Taiwan, um I went to National Taiwan University, okay.

01:01:55.070 - 01:02:11.790

Most of the professors were educated here, so you know—and the texts we used, um I would

01:02:11.890 - 01:02:31.980

say one-half—one-third to one-half you have to use English textbooks. So there was no difficulty from the school there

01:02:32.990 - 01:02:54.040

to the school here, you know, you can pretty much know. The only thing I was surprised, was the kids here didn’t have that much math, and when

01:02:54.390 - 01:03:14.160

I was at U of H, there was—there were some people who took the college math, algebra and stuff, and uh I—they didn’t know how to work the problems, so I

01:03:14.910 - 01:03:30.640

helped them with it. So they were saying uh, ‘Were you a math major?’ I said, ‘Actually, I only had high school

01:03:30.640 - 01:03:46.680

math.’ They said, ‘Boy, sure made us feel good.’ Okay. And did any of your family members come to America? Yes, yes.

01:03:47.690 - 01:04:04.660

I have two brothers—both came to the U.S. I have one brother, uh finished—got a PhD from UC

01:04:04.660 - 01:04:21.320

Berkeley, and uh he worked for a Nobel Prize winner. I have another brother; he finished at the University of Wisconsin. Also, got a PhD.

01:04:24.450 - 01:04:37.980

So your brothers just came to study as well? Right. Did they end up staying in America? Yes. Now, uh one brother died. He worked for DuPont.

01:04:38.360 - 01:04:57.360

I think the stuff they used was toxic, uh but his families are still here. Now, the other brother um is in

01:04:57.550 - 01:05:14.870

Washington, D.C., in Maryland. But he took a job. Went back to uh teach and uh do the research in Beijing,

01:05:16.240 - 01:05:33.270

but he’s coming back. And what about your sister? My sister is in San Francisco, okay. She is retired now.

01:05:33.600 - 01:05:54.560

She did work. They all worked longer than I did. So you focused a lot on family life, then, would you say? Like raising your children? Yes. I think it’s very important.

01:05:55.090 - 01:06:09.730

Do you think there were any particular values that you tried to teach your children as they were growing up? Well, at least I don’t have uh the problems that some parents do, you know.

01:06:10.090 - 01:06:30.990

They seemed to want to study. Uh they seem to really think education is important. Um yeah, so.

01:06:34.400 - 01:06:50.110

By the way, my son just got a professorship at Baylor. Oh, that’s great. My daughter finished at Rice.

01:06:50.730 - 01:07:10.780

She is in Portland, Oregon. So I think they both value education. Whether it’s any good or not for me to be there with them, uh I can’t say,

01:07:11.600 - 01:07:30.160

but I did the kind of work, when we were building houses, they were, they were children. In your career, have you ever felt that you didn’t need to work? Did you just want to work?

01:07:31.080 - 01:07:44.960

I had fun. Especially, uh my husband was saying, ‘Okay,’ I said, ‘Do you like this plan?’ He said, ‘Yes, is this

01:07:45.180 - 01:08:02.540

ours?’ I said, ‘We’ll see.’ At the end, he said, ‘You always say we’ll see. We didn’t even get any of it.’ So when I built this house, he said, ‘You aren’t going

01:08:02.980 - 01:08:16.440

to sell this house, are you?’ I said, ‘No.’ Some people did come and say, ‘Can we buy this house?’ I said, ‘No, I promised my husband.

01:08:16.650 - 01:08:36.360

No.’ So how long did it take before you—from when you started building houses until you finally wound up living here? Uh, I would say—there were

01:08:39.400 - 01:08:59.640

maybe uh fifteen years. When did you start building houses? I think it was uh about, uh, 197-something.

01:08:59.940 - 01:09:18.290

When they had the, the World’s Fair in New Orleans. Uh probably about ’75 or so. And I think you were the first woman homebuilder

01:09:19.780 - 01:09:34.780

in Houston? I wouldn’t say Houston. West University. That’s how much smaller, you know. And did you—besides with the architect and with the contractor, did you collaborate

01:09:38.190 - 01:09:51.470

with anyone at all? Did you work with anyone? Well, uh like I said, uh I did have somebody who was doing the contract for me.

01:09:52.410 - 01:10:09.480

He would come to talk to me you know to see if this person is okay. Some of the small stuff, if he thought the person would do a good job, we just

01:10:09.580 - 01:10:30.110

went ahead you know. I said he could just hire the people, but we did the plan—I did plan the house, everything. Did you ever plan for other people, or was this just for your

01:10:31.430 - 01:10:50.410

own houses? Well, some houses we built were actually a little too big for us, but uh at the time we’d say, ‘Just, we’ll see what happens.’ So

01:10:52.780 - 01:11:11.520

of course, there were some mistakes in building, too, and uh especially you worked with West University, they would approve your plan. They came back to say they vetoed it,

01:11:12.590 - 01:11:32.460

so you had to take, to take down whatever you already started, but overall it’s not too bad. Is there anything else you wanted to share with us?

01:11:32.550 - 01:11:51.360

Just about your life in Houston when you got here and what it was like immigrating to America? Uh, actually, I think America is just of

01:11:51.490 - 01:12:06.580

the place, and when I went from Mainland China to Taiwan, I didn’t understand the language. I came here, I did understand.

01:12:08.290 - 01:12:24.500

It’s even easier to get into the life here than when we went from Mainland China to Taiwan. Uh of course,

01:12:24.680 - 01:12:44.530

you know, Taiwan is nice. It’s a really good place, so- You said you had difficulty from mainland to Taiwan, what kinds of difficulties? That we didn’t understand the language,

01:12:47.970 - 01:13:03.960

okay. Uh one thing that’s very nice for me was the school in Nanking. They were so advanced, when I went to Taiwan, I didn’t have to understand anything.

01:13:03.960 - 01:13:21.880

I knew how to work all the papers. My mother never knew I didn’t have to understand or study. She said, ‘You did pretty well,’ but I didn’t understand one word the teachers were saying.

01:13:22.650 - 01:13:45.480

Is it just because they were speaking a different dialect of Mandarin? That’s correct, but later they did speak Mandarin. Okay. Okay. But now like when we went to college, the, the people, the American teachers, they were speaking

01:13:45.920 - 01:14:05.000

English, so there was almost you know no transition from that then to come here. So it’s very easy. Did you ever learn the dia—the Taiwanese dialect?

01:14:05.720 - 01:14:21.660

No, never. Well, I guess that’s the thing. You do what you have to do. Things, they were—they said

01:14:21.750 - 01:14:40.670

that they had to learn Mandarin. We spoke Mandarin already, so no problem. And uh here, you had to learn English, so now I

01:14:40.670 - 01:14:58.700

still don’t understand Taiwanese. Okay, well, I think that’s all we have. Okay. Thank you very much.