Bing Kwun Wong was born Sept. 20, 1917, in Gom Benn. He was the second son of Hong Sam Wong, and the younger brother of Bing Tew Wong. In his family, all the men eventually went to America. He left Gom Benn in 1937, as a 20 year old, leaving his 16-year-old wife, Sau Kuen, in the village. For the next 11 years, he worked in America, separated from her by an ocean and World War II.
It must have seemed as if he might never return. He attended adult school, at Belmont High in Los Angeles, and worked washing dishes. Eventually, he became adept at butchering meat, making cha siu (BBQ pork), and cooking American and Chinese-American dishes ranging from apple to egg custard pies. He and his friends liked to visit Yosemite and San Francisco (to see his father-in-law).
Near the end of the war, his mother died in China. When the news of her death reached America, Bing’s father was so grief-sicken that he gambled away money they’d saved to return to China. Finally, several years after the war, Bing returned to China in 1948, and brought Sau to live in Los Angeles.
Bing and Sau would eventually have three children: Arthur, Leland and Andrea. For a brief time, Bing tried operating a laundry on Sunset Blvd., but went back to working in the kitchen at his brother, Bing T. Wong’s restaurant, the Great Wall, in West Covina. In the 1950s, they lived in the East Adams area south of downtown Los Angeles. In 1955, he joined with a partner to open his own take-out restaurant, Kun Ming Kitchen, in Covina. He would operate the restaurant for 25 years, until he retired.
Meanwhile, Sau worked for decades in the garment industry as a seamstress, often working day and night behind her sewing machine. In 1960, they moved to El Sereno next to Cal State L.A.
Until the late 1970s, China was effectively closed to outside visitors. So it wasn’t until 1980 that Sau returned to Gom Benn with a group of close relatives to celebrate the opening of a garment factory.
In 1986, Bing and Sau returned to Gom Benn with their daughter, Andrea, and son-in-law, Peter Young.
They hired a van, but no one really knew the way. As Andrea recalled, “Dad kept pointing to the mountains, and said he lived at the foot of the mountain. When we got close, Mom recognized a lady. The lady recognized her, too, and said, “Are you A-Foong?”
Soon the villagers crowded around them. They were taken to their ancestral home. Later they visited Andrea’s grandma’s grave. Andrea, a school teacher, visited the Gom Benn school and a library funded by her uncle, Bing T. Wong.
In 1994, Bing returned to visit Gom Benn with his son, Arthur, and daughter-in-law Jennifer, and their two daughters. It was quiet, with few people about. By then, the Chinese economy was growing rapidly, and the villages’ young people were moving to the bigger cities for jobs. Gom Benn was once again becoming a sleepy little village.
Bing and Sau never went back after that.
After retiring, they cared for Art and Jennifer’s daughters, Linz and Hayley; Leland and Dorothy’s kids, Dorenda and Erik; and Andrea and Pete’s kids, Brent, Keith and Brittney.
They loved a good cup of coffee, apple pie and home-cooked prime rib. Sau was a big Lakers fan, and Kobe her favorite player.
Bing died on March 24, 2008. He was 90 years old. Sau died in February 25, 2017, when she was almost 96 years old.
