Wong Kwong-Wai

Danny D. Yeung

"I have decided to go to Pui Ching", I told my parents. My Dad looked at me carefully and said, " Good! But.." I smelled trouble coming. "Pui-Ching is on the Kowloon side. You need to take a tram, a ferry and a bus to get there." He continued. My Mom jumped in immediately, "You will be blown into the harbor by the winds! Look at you! The tires of the buses are taller than you." In a rare moment of defiance of my thirteen-year life, I summoned enough courage and said, "I still want to go!"

After one week in my new school, I found out there were quite a few of us that were in the same boat. We were new transfers desperately trying to find new friends and support. We became friends immediately and sat together on the ferry. Among us sheepish, skinny boys, there were two 'giants': Wan-Chow and Kwong-Wai. They were head and shoulder above us. They became the sheep dogs that herded us to and from school for the
next three years.

On one stormy day, our teacher told us Ferry Gang that live on the Hong Kong side to pack up and go home right away. A typhoon was coming. I rushed nervously to the bus station. My Mom's warning was whirling in my head. "Ding-Yeu! Let's go home together!" I heard somebody shouting behind me. I turned my head and saw Kwong-Wai running hard trying to catch up with me. "Thank god! My big brother is here!" I said to myself.

The only and last time I saw Kwong-Wai since graduation was in Santa Clara, CA, in the early 70s. We took a trip together to Lake Tahoe. During the trip, we had a chance to update each other on ours lives. He told me that he was the Dean of Students of the Hong Kong Baptist College and recently became the Director of a charity organization, something similar to the United Way in the US, which was under the auspices of the Governor. At the end of the trip, he held my hand and thanked me for showing him around and for helping him to catch up on his schoolwork in the past. During his senior year, he had missed quite a few classes due to extra curriculum activity. He was the lead man in a Play that helped raise money for our school. I looked at him and said to myself, "He is still more mature, taller and heavier than I am. He is still my big brother."

I missed the 40th class reunion in Toronto and a chance to meet Kwong-Wai and other old friends. I caught up with his life story indirectly by reading his article in the Reunion Proceedings. His excess tooting of his own horn annoyed me. I was disappointed as if I found an imperfection in a piece of otherwise pure jade. I had a hard time accepting that he is human. Recently I read his article one more time. I respect his honesty and audacity in "letting it all hang out!"

I am impressed by how much he had packed into his life and touched by his effort in extending a helping hand
to the needy. I searched for the Lighter yearbook in the bookcase. I want to see his picture and read the comments he wrote about me under my picture one more time. If half a sentence of kind words keeps one's heart warm for three springs, Kwong-Wai's kind words will keep me warm the rest of my life. Kwong-Wai, I thank you for not looking at my dark side.