My original plan was to write about my early life living in different places and quit writing at the time I left Davis. That should have covered most of my early past which I barely remember. However, I am living most of my life after I moved to Piedmont in the San Francisco Bay Area. During the years of 1984-88, I worked in Physics International Company located in San Leandro. Then I worked for Lockheed Martin Company located in Sunnyvale, which was a long commute for me, during 1989-2007 until I retired.
The era living in Piedmont is the most important part of my life, where our two kids grew up and went to colleges, and our moments of life were better recorded and passed around in digital images and internet. I should have a big writing on this part of life, however, I will briefly make some remarks with some pictures, including those taken in the trips. Below the 1st picture is in front of our Piedmont house in 1985, the year Der-ying's parents also visited us. The 2nd picture is our celebration of July 4th in that year in the Piedmont downtown park which became the wedding ceremony site later for Xinru and Micah. The 3rd picture is the Lake Merritt in Oakland which is not too far from our house.
Today, the Piedmont house is no different except the big tree was removed from the front yard and I planted many bamboo and banana trees in backyard (1st & 2nd pictures). In 1989, I joined LMSC (called Lockheed Missiles and Space Company at that time) in Sunnyvale and below the 3rd picture was taken in front of its main building 157. The company is pretty far away from our house and we did not relocate because Piedmont is a good school district.
Because of the changes of jobs and living locations, we did not travel back to Asia to visit relatives for some time. In 1986, we went to see the World Expo held in Vancouver in Canada (below 1st picture) where my Shida classmate lives. In 1988, We went to southern California (2nd picture) for vacation. My niece Cherie had come to study in USA in 1986 and the 3rd picture was taken when she graduated from San Francisco Golden Gate University in 1990 with with Cheng-fun, Sidney and their kids living in San Francisco.
During this period, we only took vacation in nearby places in the US and did not have enough time to take longer trip. In 1987, Sidney went to Malaysia and Singapore to visit our family members. One of his pictures is the 1st picture below which shows my father and sister Cheeng-li who usually seldom showed up. Near the end of 1987, we went to Taiwan to visit family members (2nd & 3rd pictures). Because of the time constraint, we did not go to Southeast Asia which requires longer traveling time.
In fact, before we moved to Piedmont, we made a trip back to Malaysia in 1982 to celebrate Chinese New Year (some pictures had been posted in previous chapters), and below 1st picture was our family reunion, including my father, at JB downtown Sultan Garden in view of Singapore across the Johore Strait. In addition, we also went to Hong Kong and Taiwan (below pictures) and the kids were very young at that time. Earlier in 1979, Der-ying had also brought Xinru (who was a baby then) back to Taiwan.
After we moved to Piedmont, in December of 1990, we made a trip back to Malaysia and Singapore to see our family members, long after my father and step-mother passed away. My mother came from Singapore to see us in Johor Bahru and also my step-mother’s 1st daughter came from Pahang (below 1st & 2nd pictures). This was the last time I saw them. After that, we went to Taiwan to visit the relatives there (3rd picture).
In the summer of 2017, after 32 years, our family with grandkids except Micah came to visit Davis. Below is a family picture in front of Putah Creek on campus and another one showing the grandkids trying to play on the big slide which looked the same and was considered very scary when Xinru & Youxi were young.
In 2019, we took a family vacation to Singapore and Malaysia. The trip was fantastic and is fully documented elsewhere. We have a family reunion in Singapore and almost every family members were there (below 1st picture with Chinese names). We got to swim in a 57-storey high infinity pool (4th picture) in Marina Bay Sands Hotel. In Johor Bahru (more JB pictures in previous chapters), we went to look for our old stilt house (not there anymore, 2nd picture) and the one on Indera Putra which was still vacant (3rd pictures). We also went to Rawa island (5th picture), Kuala Lumpur and Malacca (6th picture) in Malaysia. The trip gave the kids the views of the places in southern Malaya where I grew up.
At the early 2020, pandemic started and we did not travel outside USA. In 2022, we had a birthday dinner party for Der-ying on a hilltop restaurant in Los Angeles and had a professional friend taking nice pictures (below 1st picture). In summer, we had a family vacation in Grand Teton and Yellow Stone National Parks. Surprisingly, we took a white water rafting at Snake River near Jackson Hole (2nd picture).
In the Christmas in 2022, we flew to Utah to spend time with Xinru’s family. It is a white Christmas that we never had (below 1st picture). During this time, huge storms and heavy rain called ‘atmospheric river’ came to the northwestern part of USA and were hammering most states in the country. Southwest Airlines canceled our flight back to California. Then we joined the kids driving south to Las Vegas and sunny Palm Springs. It was a very nice vacation. After Palm Springs, we drove to Los Angeles to join Youxi’s family and went to a stinky tofu restaurant. Not every body could enjoy the dishes (below 2nd picture).
We had a New Year countdown in the Toluca Lake Youxi’s house. It turned out Youxi and Jessica had offered to buy another house in the nearby Studio City and we got to see the front yard and backyard of the house on New Year day. After we went to a nearby Mexican restaurant and the food was very good. Notice Kooper the dog was in front of the house. (below pictures)
Final remark (4Mar.2023): Today, when I am about to finish my writing, proofread the content and submit for publication, I heard the news that there are big floods in the area of Segamat, Labis and Chaah, the place where I was born and grew up. My maternal uncle’s home in Labis was badly flooded in 2007 and 2010 (on newspapers) and wiped out most family documents.
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