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My name is Kam Fong. My surname...
My surname is Szeto.
My name is Kam Fong.
I was born in JiuJiang.
Many people visit LuShan, a famous mountain.
Because there were many foreigners, there were many shops that catered to them.
For example, chocolate stores.
Our store also sold chocolate and similar food.
We made cakes by ourselves. We roasted pigs. We made roasted duck.
When May came around
my mom would make sticky rice.
They will steam the sticky rice and sell it.
My dad owned a store for his business.
We went to school.
We studied in a church school.
There was the Tiao Xiu Elementary School.
It was a Christian school.
I studied there.
While studying there, the Japanese came.
The conflict spread to NanJing.
From NanJing it came to WuHu.
From WuHu
it ended up in JiuJiang.
So...
It took us more than 10 days to escape.
The Japanese came so we had to escape.
Leaving...was really hard.
The trains were so crowded when we tried to board them.
Everytime the Japanese plane flew over, we would have to leave the train.
The airplanes would keep coming
so we needed to leave the train again
And look for places with protection against the bombings.
Everytime we got back on the train, we were pushed
At the time we were 12 years old.
At the WWII time was really tough
We had to eat sweet potatoes soup.
We had to wait in line to get rice.
There was so many people eating.
So we made congee. And put in sweet potatoes.
After we fled JiuJiang, we returned to our ancestral village.
We did not return to JiuJiang because
the houses and stores had been taken by others.
We didn't know how much money to pay to buy it back.
At that time we spent all of our money.
There were about 10 people in our family to feed
with no one working.
So I entered the Shude female school.
After I graduated from high school,
I was accepted at the Red Cross Nursing program.
It's not like you. We didn't have as much toys to play with.
We didn't have much leisure time to play around.
Only children can have the time to play.
We used to make toys using cloth and putting rice inside.
We would play around with papers in the cloth
and jump rope.
We didn't have many things to play around.
After school, we would go by a café on the same street.
There were many foreigners there.
It smelled so good
but I didn't have enough money to buy a drink.
There was a nursing school held by the Red Cross hospital.
So we studied while working.
We worked for the hospital.
We made the bed. Helped clean patients' bodies.
Sometimes we would have to work the night shifts.
I went to the Red Cross hospital in 1943.
And I graduated in 1947.
So I graduated in 1947.
Afterwards, I was assigned to be a surgical nurse.
In 1947, I worked in the obstetric section.
I worked for half a year.
There was not enough personnel in the surgery room.
And the head nurse really liked me
So I was told to transfer to the surgery room.
So that is why I worked in the surgery room.
And that's where your grand-father worked.
That's how I got to know him.
We were both Cantonese.
There weren't many Cantonese speaking Cantonese there.
So...so...
So I got to know your grandfather.
Once during Christmas
we went to a dancing party.
We went to a person's home
A man living in Shanghai who was very rich with a house to dance.
So your grandfather asked me out.
Gradually we got to know each other.
So...let me see...
We got familiar with each other over 1 to 2 years
And we got married in 1951.
We got married in 1951.
And then he went back to Canton City for vacation.
During his vacation, the communist party came into power
and didn't allow us to quit our jobs.
At the time, the communist party started persecuting only businessmen.
Your grandfather, he didn't do any business
so nothing happened to him.
Your grandfather was happy.
But then in 1960
your great grandfather in Hong Kong died.
Your great grandfather died.
So he had to go to the funeral in Hong Kong.
He decided to go with our youngest daughter.
And I went with our son.
We applied for separate visas to go to Hong Kong.
At first we didn't know.
We didn't know your grandfather's application would be denied.
But the application was not permitted.
I brought your uncle. At that point, we were separated from your grandfather.
We seldom wrote letters to each other.
Every now and then people would relay messages for us.
And send stuff back to him.
He didn't have enough food.
So we sent pig oil and peanuts to him.
But we seldom wrote letters.
I was able to return to Canton City only two times a year to visit my husband.
People would commit suicide, including doctors.
All these news filtered to Hong Kong.
I worried your grandfather wouldn't survive this.
After the cultural revolution,
he was freed and could work.
At first he could only work as a janitor.
But later he was back to being a doctor.
And when 1982 came around,
your great grandmother passed away.
When he tried to go to the funeral this time,
he was actually allowed to leave to Hong Kong.
I was terrified by the movement of the communist party.
The fear of this revolution or that revolution always hung in the air.
So when I came to the states, it felt free from all that.
And it was comfortable here.
Well by 1976 I had already visited.
Your mom graduated from the University
and I attended the ceremony in America.
I had really like America.
I arrived here and thought the air was clean.
I really liked America.
At the time, I came because of traveling
I could not emigrate immediately
because I had to wait til 1983
for your grandfather to be able to emigrate together.
Now China is rich.
Everyone is rich.
Before people were really poor.
They need to buy rationing tickets to get food.
And they need cloth tickets to get cloth to get clothes.
All of the people only wore blue clothing
and only blue trousers.
Right now they have even better clothes than Americans.
Everyone is rich and travels around the world.