Sigma Alpha Iota

PAN PIPES SummER 2014 Sai-natiOnal.ORg 12 knew he could not go back. So he stayed to get his doctorate and ultimately became a college professor in the United States. My mother was a teenager, and she had just graduated from high school, and they were going under the change of the government to communists and her parents decided that she was just at the age among five siblings where she could do anything with her life. So they made a decision that they would help her leave China. So under that idea, they walked her to the train station one day with no travel permission, and she could not carry suitcases because it would've been too conspicuous since she didn't have that permission. But they knew that there was a train that would take eight days to get her out of her hometown which is Qingdao and go over to Hong Kong where there was a different government and her uncle and aunt lived in Hong Kong along with her cousins. And nobody knew she was coming. And they had this understanding with her parents that they would not contact each other because there was so many restrictions at the time and there was violence going on, and if the communists had found a communications trail between her and her parents, they might have harmed the family that she le behind. So instead, they made a pact that they would not communicate with each other, at least for a while and they didn't know if they would ever see each other again, which they never did. So she got on the train with no suitcases, but she wore eight pairs of underwear, one over the other, and she put her money in her underwear and began the eight-day journey to Hong Kong. So the procedure was that at every stop between all the villages between Qingdao and Hong Kong, the guards would get on the train and inspect the travel permission of everyone and those with no travel permission, of course were taken off the train and jailed and punished. So with no travel permission, she awaited in fear and at every stop, the guards would inspect the travel permission of the person in front of her and skip her and then go on and inspect the permission of all those behind her. So they skipped her 141 times. By the time she got to Hong Kong, she was able to get in, even though she didn't have a British passport. e guards waved her on in for some reason, though they would definitely shoot over the heads of other people trying to get in. But she got in and walked in, and she knew she had only a little bit of money le, so she got on a train that she thought was an inner-city train, thinking that if she got on this train, she'd find her uncle who didn't know she was coming. And as soon as those train doors shut and the train began to move, she realized she hadn't been on the right train, and it was going to Kowloon, the island outside of Hong Kong instead. So, she had no more money, and then she really was in the wrong place. So she got out of that train and walked around the neighborhood in Kowloon. She went up to a door and just knocked on it, happened to be someone who used to live in her hometown, in Qingdao. And in she walked, and there was her uncle who had just decided to make a visit to Kowloon and so she was able to unite with her uncle and aunt. So the story of this is just magnificent because if you think about our ages when we were teenagers and to go at this alone, is bravery beyond what many of us experience. And they also obviously lived through the Second World War in China which was, China was devastated by that war. ose questions about you le one life behind that you know you so loved before, and you created something almost out of nothing, there's something about the ability to problem solve and establish yourself wherever you are. I mean frankly, it's very similar to one of the great compelling features of participating in the arts because sometimes you build something out of nothing, and sometimes you do have to think out of the box. When you thought you were going to go one way, and everybody changed the rules. So that has held good stead for my mother and my father and me, and I've learned from them. Jo reeD: You were in Oklahoma? JanE Chu: Born in Oklahoma. Jo reeD: And then raised in Arkansas? JanE Chu: Yes, grew up in Arkansas. Jo reeD: And I'm from New York. ere are many, many Chinese Americans in New York. I don't think about Oklahoma and Arkansas having a large Chinese American community. JanE Chu: In the '60s and the '70s when I was growing up, there were very few Chinese. I can't think of anybody else except my mother and father and me. But the community, especially because my father was a professor in a college, the faculty and the students embraced our family, so we really did have a good support system, though it was not Chinese. Jo reeD: Did you feel hyphenated when you were growing up? JanE Chu: Absolutely. Learning to live in a multi-cultural setting where my parents who spoke Mandarin at home but for me, they wanted me to assimilate, and they pushed very hard for me to assimilate, so much so, that they wanted me to speak English. I didn't participate growing up in speaking Mandarin back to my parents. ey would speak to me in either English or Mandarin, and I would respond in English. So, they wanted me to fit in well with my friends and at school because they wanted me to be a successful citizen. And knowing the ways of school life, that's why they pushed me to assimilate. at was a big deal to them at the time. Jo reeD: Music came into your life? JanE Chu: It did. Jo reeD: Was that an international language in some ways? JanE Chu: at's a very good way to articulate why music was so meaningful to me. It began because I started playing the piano at age eight, saI MeMbers In actIon 'Music was very soothing to me, and it transcended the need to put a linear set of words together. It allowed me to feel soothing. I could live in the moment, and so I became very interested in music actually for that reason. It just spoke to me in a holistic way, and I knew the value of it.' Jane Chu, nEA Chairman CHU continued from page 11

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