Oct 28 2007
Similarity
Hsu reminded me of a person Lucy was very found of, Dr. Zhu when he only attended one year at a no name medical school in Taiwan. How he cultivated her friendship and admiration was a myth to all of us. He had the greasy sneaky look of Hsu, talked with his hands in the air while saliva flying. When I got a visa and decided to visit US for my vacation in the summer 1986, coincidently he was passing by HK, bring a large group of people from China to US for schooling. He charged each of them handsomely for his service and threw tantrum when the number he expected didn’t meet. First class smuggler was what I termed him. Lucy asked him to take care of me. What could he possibly do for me? I booked everything at every stop myself, starting from Hawaii to LA, SF, NY back to Seattle. He told me to cancel it, “stay with my group, you pay little..” So end up, I became his chaperon for this group, aging from 20 to 80. Yes, they came to US for school. Things weren’t right from the start. His group stayed in a high rise hotel in Honolulu with a beach that’s too rough to swim - I was shocked that you couldn’t swim on a beach .. a nice prelude to Jones Beach, 
- What I had booked was 2 nights out on a small island. I lived in a high rise, worked in bigger one, seeing them day and night in HK. No, I didn’t want high-rise. I wanted a small rise or no rise. And seeing all those beautiful fish swim around me. Helping him herd this group wasn’t easy. When we got to LA, someone had fruit/meat (we told them not to) in their luggage hence was delayed by the custom for few hours and his mini vans left without us. He had us staying at one of the campus. I was mad. What was I doing on a campus? I followed him on his way to see someone, asking him to let me stay in a hotel in town. Just happened, one of the guys in the office had relatives visiting and he’s bring them to Disneyland and could give me a ride. Ok, I wasn’t big on theme park and one at Tokyo had left not so good impression. But out of nowhere to go, I went with them. The student or the faculty was a soft spoke black guy and his relatives from Africa were all dressed in the colorful costume like peacocks - in the nicest sense. The driver said, in 5 hours, he’ll be back picking us up. Lord, 5 hours in a park. After one run, I lost the peacocks. At first I was fine, walking around, kept myself amused, then suddenly something stuck me: I didn’t know how to get back, because I didn’t even know the name of the college! So for the next 2 hours, I was looking for the peacocks and the driver, to no avid. Remember, back then there wasn’t a cell phone, even there was, Dr. Zhu didn’t give me his, nor left me with any contact info. As the sun began to go down, sky turning orange red, I grew desperate. Then I saw the gleaming 6′+ tower covered in sweat. “Thank god you’re here ..” He apologized that his relatives wanted to go for a function that night and couldn’t find me, so he took them to the hotel first. Now, he’ll take me home. Home? I have no idea where to go. Didn’t Dr. Zhu tell you where to take me? Dr. Zhu? Who’s Dr. Zhu? So he was just happened in the room at the right moment back then. All I remembered was Building G. He laughed, “LA is too big to look for a Building G.” He said in his sing-song soft accent. Doesn’t your campus have a G building? “Not I know of.” Few more driving, he said, “don’t worry, I’ll take you back to where we met, and ask around .. worst of all, you can stay with me for the night .. I’m sure we can find your Dr. Zhu tomorrow.” We found Building G eventually. and they were nice enough to provide me some number for taxi. I was impressed with the service available in the US, at odd hours no less. I left the following morning. Purposely didn’t tell the dear Dr. Zhu. Needless to say, Lucy wasn’t pleased. She said she had to apologize to Dr. Zhu for my rudeness. “He’s nice to bring you to US, and you left without telling him…” Ya, ya, ya, my fault. Btw, Dr. Zhu’s business card imprinted with more than half dozen titles .. ..