Pui Ching Alumni Banquet

PatWong 黃雄耀

Last night was the first time since my injury that I dressed up in shirt, dress pants and jacket instead of the casual sweats and T-shirt. My son, Peter, came back from his dead week at Berkeley to drive me to the annual Pui Ching Alumni banquet held at the Empress of China in San Francisco's China town. With the help of my brother C, I had arranged to have our table to be situated up in the balcony area so that it will have plenty of room for my wheelchair. With more than 50 tables on the main floor, one can hardly walk through.

We were late. I could sense the relief shown on the faces around the Lighters' table when we finally emerged from the elevator. Ng Kam-Sik 吳錦錫 sitting next to me was very accommodating. At one point, he held down the fish and expect me to use both hands to tear a piece for myself. I had to politely inform him that I have only one free hand, and that I had to use the other one to secure my upper body else I would fall forward since I don't have the trunk muscle to keep my balance anymore.

I also explained to Jai Yee 余濟林 that I can transfer myself in and out of any passenger vehicle fairly easily since the sits are about the same height as my wheelchair.

Walter Mok 莫耀華 was thankful that I solved an ethernet installation problem for his engineer by merely talking to him on the phone a few days ago.Chan Man-Duen 陳文端 was very appreciative that I played a significant role in organizing a table for the local Lighters. His wife Carol is a Mandarin speaker. She was surprise to hear Peter speaks with a Beijing accent which he'd picked up from his Chinese classes at Berkeley.

This year, the ceremony was a bit different in that the class graduated 25 years ago, with more ladies than gentlemen, was not the main show as the class graduated 50 years ago had become.

I was a bit surprise that the lady biology teacher 張春煦 was escorted up to the balcony to chat with me. Cheng Kwok Fai 鄭國輝 of the class of 57, being an official, also came up to chat. Principal Lam Ying-Ho 林英豪 was very busy officiating and I didn't have the chance to thank him for the kind note he had my brother B handed to me a few months prior.