East to West

Charles C. Yu MD

Description

THE AUTHOR BELIEVES:
(IN HIS OWN WORDS)
• Diligence is the mother of achievement.
• No insurance company underwrites a policy for success.
• The Almighty acknowledges hardship and rewards
accomplishment in His own way.
• When you fail, you gain experience.
• Advancement tastes sweeter with sweat.
• It is not HOW you start, it is WHAT you end up with.
• Walking the pathway of progress. living and learning
must hold hands.
• Learning institutions do not hand out success on a silver
platter at the commencement exercise.

Sujets

• Huso horario
• Biography
• WEST
• EAST
• CHO
• Autobiography
• Western European Time
• YU

Informations

• Publié par: Xlibris US
• Date de parution: 11 février 2013
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781479771288
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 2 Mo

Extrait

EAST to WEST
 

 
 
An Arduous, Ten-Thousand-Mile JOURNEY
 
 
 
Charles C. Yu, MD (Yu Cho Tiat)
 
Copyright © 2013 by Charles C. Yu, MD.
Library of Congress Control Number:
2012924064
ISBN:
Hardcover
978-1-4797-7127-1

Softcover
978-1-4797-7126-4

Ebook
978-1-4797-7128-8
 
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.
 
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
 
Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.
Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.
 
 
 
 
 
Rev. date: 10/03/2022
 
 
 
 
Xlibris
844-714-8691
www.Xlibris.com
125468
CONTENTS
Section I
Preface
Introduction
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
Section II
12
13
14
15
16
17
Section III
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
 
Addendum to the East to West
SECTION I
PREFACE
I am a very old man, yet I am still alive and kicking. Most of my friends attribute my eighty-plus years of existence to the common Oriental belief in karma. I adamantly refuse to accept this unfounded belief in karma. I am fully cognizant of my family background and the genesis of my life, and I am convinced that my long and fortunate life may be ascribed entirely to the earnest efforts and meticulous care of Marie, my better half. She is my good fortune.
For half a century, Marie has served as my medical supervisor, my moral counsel, and our family financial planner and investment adviser. Without compensation, she has performed her duties as domestic engineer, live-in nanny, child psychologist, personal tutor of our four children, and chef for the household. Most important to me, she has been my constant companion.
As a competent anesthesiologist, she was very well liked by patients and admired by her peers. Definitely, she was a pillar of the anesthesia department that I established and chaired at Potomac Hospital in Fairfax, Virginia.
She is reverently adored by our highly successful children and their respective spouses and passionately loved and admired by our ten marvelous grandchildren.
I heartily dedicate this book to her.
INTRODUCTION
D r. Yu’s first book, The Pagoda Builder , described the challenges and struggles of the Chinese immigrants in the Philippines.
This autobiography depicts the trials and tribulations, cultural transformations, miraculous encounters, and honorable events in the remarkable life journey of this octogenarian physician.


1
A t the end of the nineteenth century, the once-glorious and powerful Manchu Empire that had controlled China for over two hundred years was gradually inching toward its final demise. The common people were discontent with the incompetence of the imperial government, especially with how they dealt with devastating natural catastrophes, such as widespread drought, uncontrollable floods, locust infestations, forest fires, and epidemics of contagious disease. Peasants looted the government grain storage houses daily and killed soldiers and officers of the court. Criminal elements complicated this perilous situation by kidnapping members of the wealthy class and burglarizing the homes of the rich; highway robbery was commonplace, as was the rampant murder of the innocent.
The final blow to imperial rule came from armed revolutionary groups, most of which were organized by local volunteers and patriotic citizens. The revolutionaries were financially supported by various anti-imperial groups. Chinese patriotic societies overseas eagerly provided arms and money as well as manpower to this jingoistic movement. Public-spirited commanders led the citizen-soldiers. Many of these armed groups were quite powerful and well disciplined, and some even controlled numerous cities of strategic importance.
The country’s dilemma was further aggravated by the quandary of foreign transgression. Despite the good intentions of the imperial forces and their efforts to resist foreign encroachment, they were humiliated by the combined armed forces from as many as eight foreign countries.
The victorious foreigners took advantage of the vulnerable government by demanding inequitable treaties. These foreigners controlled several major seaports in China and demanded that foreign goods imported through these ports not be subjected to customs duties. In various major cities, the foreigners also set up “concession areas,” which they considered occupied territories where only foreigners were allowed to live. Aside from tradesmen or service personnel, the Chinese were not permitted to enter these areas. Besides exerting physical control, the foreigners established their own judiciary system and governmental organizations in the concession areas. Crimes committed by foreign nationals anywhere in China had to be tried under the foreign system.
The abusive attitude of the foreigners became another crucial cause for revolutionary strife. Hatred of foreigners further incited the Chinese public, especially academics and students.
The imperial court recognized the danger of being overthrown. The emperor was especially fearful of those government officers and powerful generals who lived in the vicinity of the capital. He speculated that groups of them might take advantage of the chaos to destabilize the country from within. An imperial decree demanded that specific imperial court officers and selected armed forces commanders be dispersed to remote areas to repulse the wanton uprising. The real reason for the decree was that the emperor preferred to rely solely on the small group of loyal court officers surrounding him.
My great-great-grandfather was one of those displaced officers from the capital city. The emperor gave him several hundred hectares of land and many thousands of ounces of silver and assigned him to a little village near the major seaport of Quanzhou in Fujian Province, which is situated in southeastern China.
When my great-great-grandfather arrived in this remote village, he was the first person with the uncommon surname, Yu. In this place, the Yu family began to flourish.
2
M y grandfather, Yu Tuan, had two boys and a girl; among which my father, Yu Hong Yam, was the youngest. He was a handsome youngster, amiable, eager to learn, active in the community, and interested in business. Of all his cousins, he was the most admired by the relatives in the large Yu household. Because of his extraordinary talent, almost all the relatives in the clan speculated that he would be a success in any venture, especially business.
All the offspring of my great-great-grandfather lived together in a huge compound he had built. In order to accommodate the increasing size of the family, he built several additions over time.
My father left home at age eighteen to join his cousins, who owned a retail business in the Philippines. Before he left, he told his mother, Song Liang, of his certainty that the peace and stability of the country was nowhere in sight. China was in a tumultuous stage, facing internal revolutionary furor and harassment and abuse by foreigners.
His elder brother, Yu Hong Chet, who was more reserved and showed no interest in business, decided to stay behind to manage the family estate and take care of my grandmother.
While in the Philippines, my father demonstrated his business acumen and perseverance. Within two years, he had set up two general merchandise stores on the southern tip of Luzon Island in the Philippines, one in Legazpi City and another in Sorsogon City. The stores catered to the daily needs of the local people; thus, their performance outpaced that of their competitors.
My father foresaw the increasing demand for abaca, a special, sturdy fiber from locally grown cannabis plants. Coarse and tough, this was the most suitable fiber for making the rope used in the riggings of ships, and it was exported all over the world from the Philippines. As global trade by sea continued to increase, there would be an ever-greater demand for the fiber, as cordage was essential for all oceangoing vessels. With this knowledge in mind, my father purchased several hundred acres of abaca plantation in the outskirts of Sorsogon City. At the time, exported fiber was bringing the Philippine government a significant amount of revenue.
When he was twenty-two, my father went back home to marry my mother. My grandmother had prearranged their marriage. In reality, the entire matrimonial affair should be credited to the efforts of the matchmaker, who was a reputable person from our hometown. Their union turned out to be a perfect match. From studying their wedding pictures, I have to say that they were a handsome couple.
My mother’s name was Chua Kun, and she was from a nearby farming community. The daughter of a distant cousin of my grandmother, she helped her family