In old time, if a person went away from home, it usually took a long time for that person to go back because of the expenses and the transportation. Even calling home was a luxury and so writing was essentially the way, but I seldom wrote.
After 4 years in college in Taiwan, I went back to Malaysia in the summer of 1970. Before I went back to Malaysia, in the Chinese New Year of 1970, I visited my wife’s family in a southern town called Gangshan. We took pictures inside a nearby elementary school where my wife had attended (left picture).
In Malaysia, I stayed longer than one month. It was a big deal for the whole family, my 2 step sisters had joined our family and I saw my brother’s 1st daughter for the first time. Below 1st picture is the birthday party for my step-Mom shot at home and another picture (in the beginning chapter earlier) was shot in front yard with my brothers and parents. The 2nd picture was shot at Singapore airport when they sent me off.
Our family timber business was doing very well and they took me to Kemayan (see my previous write-ups), about 180 miles from home, to see it. Later we went to Kuala Lumpur to meet an American business man coming from Hawaii at a hotel, I learnt that he eventually defaulted on bringing in investment capital.
After I came back to Taipei from Malaysia and moved to Keelung, I started to go into the color photography by taking pictures in both places. Every year’s spring, azalea flowers bloom on NTU campus, not too far from Shida, with many bright colors. It is a popular place to take pictures (1st picture). Keelung is a rain city and is good for growing plants. I also found good azalea blooming in Keelung. Below right pictures show the spring time of sport field of Keelung’s Girls Senior High School where I was teaching.
Teaching in Keelung was not my career but it gave me the time to apply for financial aids to attend a US university. Without financial help, it was very difficult for most students to come to USA. Surprisingly, I got an offer from the University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee. Other schools did not give me answers.
I don’t think I had much money at that time but I took a flight from Taipei and landed on San Francisco on August 8, 1971. I didn’t get out of SFO but continued my flight to Milwaukee. The life was simple and quite safe in USA at that time that people still hitch-hiked on the road and didn’t necessary locked their doors at nights.
I rode a bus at Milwaukee airport in the afternoon and it took more than an hour to get to the university campus. I cannot remember that how I was settled in a student dormitory on campus. It was summer time, there were no other students. It was a shock to me because in Taiwan people were anywhere regardless of days or nights. You could buy food even when it was very late and people, including women, went out at nights. Here it was almost no one around at this time.
It turned out my brother’s classmate in Foon Yew, one year higher in grade, was studying in the University of Wisconsin at Madison. The next day I went to visit him and it was very nice of him to take me riding a boat on the lake next to the campus (below 1st picture).
Then I went to visit my own 2 high school classmates studying near Toronto. I stayed at Toronto for a few days and really enjoyed the city. We did many things and I barely remember. The most interesting thing is they took me to visit the world famous Niagara Falls on the Canadian side. Now I only brought back my memory by starring at my old pictures and, surprisingly, they are in good colors. Below 2-4 pictures were shot at Niagara Falls. It is strange that I don’t have their pictures taken with me at the time.
There was a young Chinese Physics professor on Milwaukee campus. Don’t know how he found out me and invited me to his house for dinner. He found out that I was also applying other universities and University of California at Davis was one of it.
At that night, he helped me to call one Physics professor at UC Davis who verbally promised me a financial assistantship. I really owe to this professor at Milwaukee who helped me and even advised me that California was probably better place for me. So I flew to Davis, California in days and this totally changed my life path.
Some old volunteers picked me up at Sacramento airport and I didn’t know it was quite far from Davis campus. I was settled at the UC Davis dormitory with cafeteria open but very lousy food. I just wondered how I could survived on these food and a physics Chinese student came along to move me out of the dormitory and share apartment with other foreign students.
It turned out there was a Chinese Student Association on campus that would help new comers. After that, there were many things happen in Davis. However, I want to submit this story first because there is a deadline, and I can add more later.
The time was in 1971, which is still long time ago, and I need to look at my old pictures to bring back my memory. Left picture is the certificate awarded the title of Honorary Citizen of Davis during the picnic in a park to foreign students before the school started. It was quite a very considerate thought which seems not likely happen nowadays.
When I arrived at Davis, I realized that many people, especially the UC Davis students, were riding bicycles. It is widely known as the bicycle capital of the world. As a student without car, it was so convenient for me to ride to school and around town.
Since I only have few pictures during my early years in Davis, I found these pictures online from the City of Davis to celebrate its first bicycle lanes officiated in 1967, four years before I arrived at Davis. The scenes looked very familiar to me because I was doing the same thing on the same streets. So I posted these pictures here as my experiences in Davis.
Below first 2 pictures were shot on campus after I arrived at Davis. I had an office in Physics building. Roughly after 1-2 years I moved to Applied Science Department. Once a while, we ventured out to other places because some foreign students had cars. Below 3rd and 4th pictures were shot at Golden Gate Bridge and some place in bay area or in Sacramento.
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