talk 520

I reunited with Tony Kwok (B10) at the Lighter Reunion in 2002. I didn't have a chance to sit down with him until the last day of our trip to Greater Canton Area. Among all places, we ran into each other at Kentucky Fried Chicken in Poon Yu, China. We had coffee together. Even though we hadn't seen each other for over 37 years since we had parted at Berkeley, CA, we didn't have any problem picking up where we left off. We decided to have lunch in Millbrae, CA after we had returned to the United States. Since then, we have lunch together every week. We were delighted that Ben Chinbong (F1), Pat Wong (C15), and Chung-wo Chiu (D25) joined us couple months later. Walter Mok (D18), Peter Chang (C34), Kam-sik Ng (C11) and Wan-chow Cheung (D15) show up whenever they can shake loose. BSC was born! We have lunch and coffee afterwards every Thursday in Mountain View, Ca. Our first visitor was Theodore Hsieh (B32). Ted and I came on the same airplane to our new country_ USA in 1959. I squeezed his hand hard as we held hands and prayed. I suppose I wanted to make sure it is real. Peter Tong (F4), James Koo (A40) and S.S. Lau (C21) graced our meeting whenever they came to the San Francisco Bay Area. They kept us up-to-date on SARS, Pui-Ching and Hong Kong. Shui-Cheung Chen (D22) also visited us from the Chicago area. Ivan Choi (B25) came from Thailand in July and stayed in the SF Bay Area till September. His charm got us better service in restaurants. Once he helped order food for us in a Thai restaurant using the native language. After his introduction to Thai food, we have decided to try a different ethnic restaurant every week. Ben is in charge of our culinary well being. Besides Chinese, so far he has introduced us to Italian, Thai, Malaysia, Singapore and Indian restaurants on Castro Street in Mountain View. He also makes sure that we have to walk round trip from one end of the street (where Starbucks is located and where we park our car) to the other end (where the restaurant is located). Tony has the most challenging job. We have asked him to arrange nice weather for us. With apparent connections from up above and can-do attitude, he handles the assignment with flying colors! Not a single drop of rain has interfered with our meetings all year long. Even though we drink coffee under the shades of a couple tall redwood trees outside of Starbucks, we still have to move our table occasionally to escape the bright California sun. Every time I look around the table, the warm friendship, character, and spirit of the BSC gang impress me. There is a survivor of a deadly accident who is in a wheel chair; a man fought his way back from the brink of death from an unknown ailment; a survivor of cancer; a man facing the threat of loosing his eyesight due to glaucoma. No one would ever know by looking at us. We are so carefree and happy. Every time I look around the table, I am in awe of the intelligence and life experiences of our gang. We have an artist, a self-trained webmaster, an old China hand, a new China hand, a Silicon Valley entrepreneur, several high-tech professionals and a Mr. Mom (ex.). Our conversations flow freely from one subject to another: from geo-political issues to Chinese history, from music to arts, from western civilization and philosophy to Buddhism, from sport to stock market, from beauties to cooking, from health care to spaceships. "Check out this article in Baron! It projects that China and United States will be the #1 & #2 economies in the world by 2050! Do you think we will still be around?" I said. "Maybe, if we were Tsoong Mei-Ling.宋美玲", Tony said. "Well! Let's make it our goal to have lunch and coffee together till at least 2020." said Pat. "How about buying a Lotto ticket together? If we win, we will build a club house and sponsor a Lighters get together", said Ben. We all agreed.