My Mom's Side...

I've always thought it was crazy how my parents met in this big, wide world.

My mom comes from a Hong Kong family of eight children and each of them were delegated responsibilities in the family shop that sold everything including suitcases that some people actually tried to steal, but that's another story. The older children's responsibilities also included taking care of the younger children. My grandmother was too busy with the shop and cooking for everyone that she had no time to take care of the younger children.

My mom would tell me stories about how the children were always served last, behind the adults,guests and workers and sometimes there wasn't enough to go around. During the occasional times when the children could buy ice cream, the eight of them would crowd around a small, flat cup of vanilla ice cream the diameter of a palm and pass it around after taking one tiny spoonful until it was completely devoured.

My grandfather was a very intelligent businessman and shop owner, but he was also an addicted gambler. Once, he even missed the birth of one of his children because he was too busy gambling. The men he played with cheated him out of basically everything he had. Instead of providing his family with a more comfortable life, he gambled his earnings away.

My mom came to the U.S for college. She earned her master's degree in psychology and met my dad at the Chinese Christian Church in Tennessee.

My mom told me how when she was young, she would look up into the sky and watch big, white airplanes fly by. She never imagined in her wildest dreams that she would fly in one of them, let alone to the United States.

Both of my parents say they are very blessed by God to be where they are today.

I have an incredible family history. It has brought me to where I am today. Like a mosaic, it has put me piece by piece into what I am today.

South China Morning Post: Latest Hong Kong, China News http://www.scmp.com/portal/site/SCMP/

Jackie Chan: Hong Kong and Taiwan Too Free http://blog.taragana.com/index.php/archive/jackie-chans-china-comments-taken-out-of-context-spokesman-says-backlash-grows/