Where do I begin? Let's see, my father's family is from Yiwu of Zhejiang province (East/Coastal side of China, near Shanghai). My mother's family is from Dalian of Liaoning province (Northeastern China, near Beijing). I have been to all the abovementioned cities and met many relatives that I never knew I had.

My parents met and married in Taipei, Taiwan. So that's where my sister and I were born. Then my dad got a job with the Inland Revenue department in Singapore to oversee the computerization of their tax system, and thus the four of us moved to Singapore in 1982.

We stayed in Singapore for almost 15 years. Then my parents decided to send us abroad to further our studies. My mom's brother, Uncle Bill, and my dad's cousin, Uncle Bailey, both live in the Dallas, Texas area. So my sister and I decided to come here around end-1996.

In the meantime, my dad left his job of more than 10 years and started working for EDS Singapore. His projects brought him to Taiwan a lot, so much so that the employees at a certain Taipei hotel saw more of him than my poor mom. Thus in 1998 he transferred to EDS Taiwan and my parents moved back to stay in Taipei. However, they shuttle between Taiwan, Singapore and China frequently, partly due to my dad's work and partly my mom's business.

Incidentally, the EDS global headquarters is in Plano which is in North Dallas. My dad has been here a couple of times for business so we got to see him during those times. But since his work concentrates mainly on the Asia-Pacific region, he doesn't come here as much as we had hoped.

The last time our family got together was in August 2003 here in Dallas. It's not easy to get all four of us to be at the same place at the same time, for the past several years at least. On the left is one of those rare family pictures.









Back: Carol, Evana
Front: Y.S., Betty
Photographer: Bruce

I do miss my parents very much. I hope they'll be retiring somewhere in the United States so that it'll be easier for us to spend time together. Perhaps in California, as the weather there will be more to their liking. Also, I'll have an excuse to head west ever so often (and stop in Las Vegas for a day or two on the way there!).

If I have to pick only one characteristic to describe my sister, it would be that she has the voice of an angel. Of course that's not all there is to her. But once she starts to sing, you'll be so mesmerized by her singing that you won't be thinking much about anything else.

Evana's currently doing her Masters of Arts in Performing Arts (I think it's actually called Aesthetic Studies or something). It is interesting if you consider the fact that she has a Bachelor of Science in Applied Mathematics topped off with a Master of Science in Telecom Engineering. I guess both my sister and I have that left-right brain duality going on.

Besides having all the brains and talents, she is also beautiful, fun to be with, caring, sweet, patient, and totally unassuming. I can probably fetch a tidy sum of money if I auctioned her off on Ebay. Just kidding!! Besides, she is already spoken for. (In fact, I was the matchmaker.) Marvin and Evana just make such a sweet couple!