[
    {
        "id": 211402,
        "series_id": 26,
        "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine",
        "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊",
        "series_use_hku_proxy": false,
        "document_key": "RAS-1988",
        "page_number": 118,
        "title": "RAS-1988",
        "content_text": "94\n\nA SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY INTO THE PAST OF\n\nTHE CHAN AND JONG FAMILIES*\n\nVIOLET MEBIG CHAN LEW\n\nIntroduction\n\nI have tried several times to get started on tracing my roots but have found several factors hindering my progress. Although I have gathered together quite a bit of material, I have been somewhat frustrated by my inability to read and write Chinese fluently or to find help with it. Also, ages given are often confusing because some are reckoned according to the lunar calendar and some according to the Gregorian system.\n\nOn one occasion I wrote, \"On this the 16th day of October, 1973, I am on a United Airlines plane with my husband, John, bound for Honolulu, which is 'home' to me. It seems that as long as one's parent is alive and is living in the same locality where one grew up, that place remains 'home'. It is the place where one has friendships bonded as far back as memory carries one. The older one becomes, the more one looks backward and recalls with pleasure incidents that have enriched one's life. I have been toying with the idea of putting down in English an account of the migration of my grandparents to Hawaii and the assimilation of the family members into the Western culture. Already, within three generations extending over a span of about one hundred\n\n* Editor's note: Violet Mebig Chan Lew was born in 1906. At the age of 71, she decided to investigate the history of her family, the Chan and Jong clans, which had emigrated to Hawaii from Hsiang-shan county in Kwangtung. Consulting public documents, genealogical records, personal correspondence, her diary and interviewing as many people as she could, Violet Lew spent ten years gathering material for this endeavour. A retired teacher and social worker, Mrs. Lew now lives in Boston and Honolulu with her husband, John. The Journal discovered this manuscript in 1986, and persuaded Mrs. Lew to allow it to be published. Mrs. Lew writes in her correspondence with the Journal: \"I wish to acknowledge the help of Dr. Wing Tsit Chan and my cousin, Toby Chen, in the translation of several sections of the Chan genealogy; the help of Pyun Kyau Minn with the organization of the project; and especially that of Betty Liu in getting this project published. I am also grateful to those who have contributed what they remembered of past events or enlightened me in the translation of Chinese characters.\" Mrs. Lew dedicates this article to her parents, Ping Yip and Jong Hung Chan.",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1988.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ft84gb83q",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 211484,
        "series_id": 26,
        "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine",
        "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊",
        "series_use_hku_proxy": false,
        "document_key": "RAS-1988",
        "page_number": 200,
        "title": "RAS-1988",
        "content_text": "176\n\nMemories of teachers in other departments remain with me. Dr. Douglas Scott, whom I had for English, extended himself to get me oriented in my first few weeks at the university and several years later, gave Bung Fong a free ride to the West Coast. I enjoyed Dr. Lawrence Fossler, a tall and large-framed German, for his great sense of humour and his ability to make German classes interesting. Pharmacology under Dr. Lyman was my most relaxing course because he had an easy manner in teaching. Although Physics is generally difficult for some, I surprised myself by doing well in it. My Waterloo was Organic Chemistry, which I eventually passed by the skin of my teeth. Because I had little social life, except on rare occasions when friends of Mrs. Johnson included me at their gatherings, my contacts in school fulfilled most of my need for companionship.\n\nThe depression which began in 1929 was still on in 1932, and jobs were hard to find. I accepted a position to teach senior biology under a three-year contract with the True Light Middle School at Paak Hok Tung in Canton. This was a prestigious high school supported by the Presbyterian Mission. Its principal, the Rev. Stephen G. Mark, had known me when he was pastor of the Beretania Chinese Church in Honolulu, where I had done some volunteer work and where I had taught English at night to Chinese male immigrants. On my way to China I stopped over in Honolulu for about two months as the guest of the Tong Phongs, who had welcomed Mother and Dora into their home following Ruth's death. Helen and her husband were also living in her in-laws' home at that time.\n\nMother, Dora and I obtained third-class special passage on the Empress of Japan, sharing a room with Pyun Kyau Zane Minn and her mother. There were many Chinese young men and women on board, some returning to their native land and some going to China for the first time to study at Lingnan University or Yenching University. Among the Hawaiian passengers were Hung Wo Ching, Irma Tam, Deborah and Joseph Kau, Bunny and Ethel Au, Sing Chang, Kim Tet Lee, Emma Tenn, and Ellen Lo. A favourable exchange rate, a sense of identity with their roots and a desire to contribute to the progress of China motivated many American-born Chinese to go to China.\n\nMy three years in China were interesting and enlightening, but one...",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1988.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ft84gb83q",
        "rank": 0
    }
]