The family of Chew and Yowly Hoi has donated $10,000 to the Gom Benn Scholarship Fund to establish a memorial scholarship to be awarded annually to a top college student. Read more about our memorial scholarships.
The following essay is a remembrance by their granddaughter, Jillian Pih, the 2018 and 2019 Stephen Huahn Scholarship, awarded to the top college student, and a communication and psychology major at the University of Southern California.
As a freshman in college, I was assigned a school ancestry project to learn about my identity and background. Leaving China, my grandparents had to forge a new path here in America, and for that I must gratefully acknowledge their sacrifice. Had it not been for their grit, hard work, and perseverance, my life would not be as it is.
A recent trip to Gung Gung’s village in rural China increased my appreciation for my grandparents, Chew and Yowly Hoi. Gom Benn lacks electricity and running water, even today. Chickens peck at grain scraps as water buffalo wallow in rice paddies. Farmers till crops, while others collect fish drying on racks.
My grandfather, Wong Kin Cheung and later Chew Hoi, was born on June 15, 1929, in Gom Benn. His mother passed away during his childhood. This left him alone to run around and play. He was athletic, playing ball, table tennis, and running track and field. He attended National Sun Yat Sen University in Guangzhou, which was then called the South China Agricultural College. He studied Entomology, which is the study of bugs.
While in school, my grandfather met Lau Shiu Yao (Yowly, who would become my grandmother). She was a bright, studious girl three years younger than him from Guangzhou. After graduation, Gung Gung taught mathematics and entomology. Yowly was also a teacher, of biology. But the two were separated in the 1950s when the Communist government assigned them to teach in different cities. Chew and Yowly decided to leave China for a better future.
In 1962, Chew and Yowly and their young children, sold their few possessions to pay a “mule” to smuggle them into Hong Kong. They set out on their dangerous journey with their last possession of value, a gold necklace, hidden in their daughter (my mother’s diaper, figuring that if caught, no one would check the baby’s diaper. The last part of the escape required a night-time scramble up a steep slope. Waiting for them was a taxi at the top of the road to whisk them to freedom and anonymity in bustling Hong Kong.
Later they came here. Upon arriving in America, my grandfather faced the challenge of learning English and adapting to a new culture. Not knowing any English, he knew he could no longer teach. His sister-in-law helped him find a job in data processing for Bank of America, where he would work for 23 years. My grandmother also worked in data entry for BofA, for 25 years. Despite their frugality, my grandfather had to initially work the graveyard shift at Bank of America, since it paid more than regular daytime hours. His sacrifice paid off. The family eventually saved enough to purchase a house in Glendale, California.
In my grandparents’ free time, they enjoyed playing mahjong with friends from Gom Benn Village who had also immigrated to the Los Angeles area. Along with these friends, my grandfather helped to establish the Gom Benn Village Association in Chinatown, for cultural, social and friendship purposes. I am proud that my grandfather was active in the Association, writing the newsletter, and serving for many years as treasurer of the Gom Benn Scholarship Fund.
My grandmother died June 3, 2018. My grandfather died January 19, 2019. They were survived by their children and their spouses, grandchildren and their spouses , and 2 great-grandchildren with another on the way.
My grandparents’ character traits have become woven into my identity. I have adopted a mindset that will allow me to achieve my dreams; it is an outlook that is based upon hard work, determination, and the motivation that was passed down by my grandparents. It’s what I will one day teach my children and grandchildren, too.
