My Story, Without Regrets

It all began on a cold wintry January morning, almost 73 years ago, when I came into this world, the second of what was to be three sons, to a Chinese father and a Colombian mother, in Washington, DC. They had met while mom was working as the nanny to the Colombian Ambassador to the U.S. and his wife who had three children and dad who went to visit his friend, also from China who also worked at that embassy, as a butler. Dad saw mom and was immediately struck by her beauty and shy demeanor and it was akin to the scene in the original “Godfather” movie when Michael first saw Apolonia, who would become his wife, my dad, like Michael, had been struck by the proverbial “lightning bolt”, a relationship, after they were married which would span some six decades.

My early memories were of sharing a crib with my younger brother, in a basement of someone’s home, near Georgetown, in D.C. I do not remember much about my dad, until we moved into our own home, in the northeast part of Washington.

I remember clearly the day we moved into our home, I was six years old. It was a large Victorian style home of four levels, it was yellow with white trim, and when we first moved in, our neighbors were all white but with time, those folks all moved to the suburbs in Maryland and Virginia and then we had neighbors of African American descent, who were in large part, wonderful people.

My two brothers and I grew up in that mixed ethnic family and it was the best of both worlds, in some respects, like food and culture but at the same time was fraught with constant arguments, once my parents learned how to communicate with each other.

Dad was a taxi driver for many years and eventually would open a restaurant with his friend, the gentleman who had introduced mom and dad, and they went on to form a chain of four restaurants in the D.C. area, and became an overnight success, as they were the first to introduce northern style Chinese food to America.

Dad would spend much time away from home, as he loved to play mah jong with his friends at the uptown restaurant location, to the detriment of his marriage and relationship with mom. He was also an inveterate womanizer, which also caused friction with mom.

Thus, under moms influence, I grew up, in the Catholic Faith, and became an altar boy at our local church. I remember many a freezing morning, making the trek on my bicycle, often falling on ice encrusted streets as I made my way to church to serve mass and I aspired to become a priest. To his credit, dad would attend Sunday mass with us, and we all loved to visit the donut shop after Sunday mass, down the street.

Dad was around more as the weather turned warmer in the spring and summers of our youth and he would take us to various beaches not far from our home, and we got to meet his Chinese friends, who used to play with us, at home or at the beach. I remember one time being introduced to someone he worked for who had two daughters, one of whom was Connie Chung, the famous news anchor. My older brother on one of our beach outings threw sand at her, making her cry.

We would also occasionally make trips to New York, where dad had many friends, whom he had helped at various times, to secure their residence in the U.S. through the immigration department, whose head frequently ate at dad’s restaurant. Thus he became quite skilled at currying favor with powerful people in government, to include such people as Richard Nixon, and various senators and congressmen who all ate at his restaurant.

This skill of his did not go unnoticed by the intelligence community, as we were to eventually find out. By the time I reached high school I was able to gain entry into one of the elite catholic high schools in the area and I flourished there both in academics, athletics and leadership, as it was a military school, which had produced many graduates who then went on to the service academies, as I did, win an appointment to the Naval Academy, and began my career the summer of 1966, as a plebe.

That summer is when I became a man, under the tutelage and leadership of my “boot camp “ instructor, a former marine. He ran us through some very grueling drills and forced runs, under the weight of full combat dress, carrying M1 rifles at port arms, in hot and very humid conditions. One of those runs we started with 28 platoon members but only eight finished, myself and my roommate included. Back at my room, I noted that my leggings were soaked in blood, from blisters which had formed and then broke.

After about three weeks, I had passed all of the physical requirements but had a nagging feeling of being homesick, that I couldn’t shake and then went to my supervisor to speak with him. He pulled me aside and I told him about me feeling homesick and he looked me in the eye and said, “Woo, you’ve demonstrated that you have what it takes, all you have to do is believe in yourself!” Those few words of encouragement were all I needed to get through that summer and the rest of my time there.

During my time at the Academy, having grown up in a mostly black neighborhood, and I liked to sing, I helped form a “soul group”, complete with a horn section and we called ourselves, “The Jaygees”, and I was the only non black singer, used as a backup and specialized in singing songs made popular by James Brown. We actually were pretty good and got to travel, up and down the eastern seaboard, representing the Naval Academy.

After graduating, I then went to San Diego to learn how to become an engineer on a warship. In October of that year of 1970, I went aboard my assigned ship for the next two and a half years, as an active duty combat officer.

After my deployments, I realized that this wasn’t my calling and so spent the final years of my commitment where I thought I could do the most good as the head of an alcohol and drug facility on Guam, working under Admiral George Morrison, who as it turned out was the father of then recently deceased Jim Morrison, of the Rock group, “The Doors”.

After I left the Navy, I went home and by that time, our second child was born and I worked selling insurance and had applied to become an FBI agent and I was admitted to the FBI, in April 1976, and spent the next 22 years as an agent, which I chronicled in my book, “Their Hidden Agenda, the story of a Chinese-American FBI Agent”, published in October of 2007 and then as an “e” book in 2009 on Smashwords.

After my time in the FBI, I worked various jobs both on the east coast, when I was caring for my dad, who died from cancer in June of 2006. I returned to California to be with my wife in the summer of 2008 and have been here, ever since.

I worked mostly in auto sales and as a service advisor but then found my niche, when I was recruited by Tesla. After I lost my pension from my 31 year government service, I had no choice but to continue working, while my contemporaries had all retired but my experience proved invaluable, during my time at Tesla and I Moved up the ranks with ease and my financial woes became a thing of the past, especially with the rising of the Tesla stock which I’ve been generously awarded with, in my three years there.

Then after my daughter had moved back in with us, after a year and a half, with her cancer reoccurring, after a ten year hiatus, we all find ourselves exactly where we were supposed to be, as we had wondered, my wife and I, why we had moved to this beautiful place, south of San Jose, CA, from a small apartment in south San Jose.

So, in retrospect, my life has been a series of occurrences, mostly beyond my control, it has convinced me overwhelmingly that everything happens for a reason and the fact that I’m able to convey my experiences, here in this forum, is in my estimation, truly a blessing.