One of Our Members

Paul Chow is turning 100

During the New Year’s Celebration and the 45th anniversary of the founding of the LAGSCA,
Paul Chow was a distinguished guest. He is turning 100 in 2026, and he spoke about his life and coming to the US.

A fascinating story, full of adventures and accomplishments.

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Here is his short biography and his pictures during the different stages of his life:

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I was born at the time when China was at the brink of going into extinction. A hundred years ago, Western colonial powers rushed in and carved her up. They took hold of ports, inland cities, waterways and underground minerals. Fifteen years ago, some westernized Chinese intellectuals staged a revolution to dismantle China’s 5000-year monarchy system. Soon after the revolution, warlords and different political groups raced to claim territories.

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During 8000 some years of Chinese history, development of culture and the rise and fall of dynasties have all been in the hands of a very small group, the intelligentsia. Over 90% of the population, peasantry, plowed the land in sweat and poverty to support and serve these elites. They remained illiterate and poor and living under the grace of nature. They smelled meat only once a year on New Year Eve when they prepared the “dinner” for the Kitchen God. Growing up in this environment, I considered it normal for myself to live in a heated house, served by servants, attending missionary schools and engaging in after-school activities such as swimming, horseback riding, tap-dancing, music lessons, etc. on foreign-owned concessions until, one day, bombs fell on my head when I was 11 years old.

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Japan launched an all-out invasion on China in 1937 with an ultimate aim to take over the entire Southeast Asia. My mother took us kids on a run while my father stayed on his job as a Railroad Manager to supply the defending soldiers at the front. I saw China for the first time in my life. At the end of 1941, Japan not only conquered all the eastern part of China but also extended her attacks on all the colonial powers in the Pacific to carry out her grand plan of the Great East Asia Mutual Prosperity Circle. We lost contact with my father and my sister. My mother could not support a family of four with her meager teacher’s pay. She shared bed with her youngest in the dormitory room shared with another teacher and sent my older brother and me to Interior China to seek aid of the government. We entered a school for overseas Chinese in Chongqing where tuition, room, poorly rationed board and lots of bedbugs were provided free of charge.

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Three years later, the Japanese tanks and cavalry rolled into interior China. My brother and I quit school and joined the army. We were sent to Burma. After taking down Myitkyina and Bhamo, the New First Army was pulled back to join the resistance war in China. During our attack on Guangzhou, Japan surrendered. We marched into the city without firing a single shot.

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Then New First Army was ordered to move on to Northeast China. To fight the Communist. Aren’t Communists Chinese? I refused. My only other choice was AWOL.

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Without a high school diploma, I was barred from colleges. So I went to sea to fish.

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For the following nine years, I fished along the China coast from Haiyang-dao to Hainan-dao as a deckhand, from Taiwan-dao to Nansha-dao as a captain, and got fired after sinking my boat on Dongsha-dao. Then I limped into Keelung and started my career all over again from deck. In 1951, I was selected to go to the United States where I fished for a year from San Pedro, California to Southeast Alaska and from Portland, Maine to St. Petersburg, Florida.

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In 1955, I entered a 50-year-old Chinese sailing vessel, a junk which I bought with my life’s savings, $800, in a trans-Atlantic yacht race from Portland, Maine to Gothenburg Sweden. I ran into a typhoon on the sea around Okinawa followed by a storm on Japan sea. I missed the race. But I made across the Pacific Ocean to the west coast of America and set a record of 53 days in the crossing. I was 29 years of age. It was about time to return to school.

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In America, there was no limit on age, diploma or residence for colleges. So I jumped ship and enrolled in college. I found that as long as I stayed in school, my visa would never expire. So for ten years, I stayed in school from San Francisco City College, to University of California at Berkeley, to University of Washington at Seattle and to Northwestern University at Evanston until there was no more degree to get after PhD. All this time, I supported myself by working as chauffeur, gardener, mover, tree cutter, house and boat painter, septic tank cleaner and draftsman. Following that I spent another 26 years at USC, U of Texas at Austin, CSUN, Zhejiang U and Beijing Institute of Tech in China to teach physics and computer science. During all this time, I tried to extend my experience to other students from China who had the same aspiration as myself. Then I found that there was an institution that was founded on the same objectives as mine, Los Angeles Guangzhou Sister City Association. I joined it. With LAGSCA, I was rewarded by promoting Science in Space to 14,000 high school students in China, 550,000 junior and high school students in Los Angeles Unified School District, Panda Preservation in Wolong, Sichuan China and Immersion Language Experience for Interpreters from Foreign Affair Office of Guangzhou Municipal Government.

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After retirement, I devoted my time in my childhood love, story telling. I have published on Amazon.com/books the following books:

3 novels (Moishe Fantasy, It’s Just A Fly, Taiwan Fishermen), one biography (Walking on Liberated Feet), 2 journals (The Junk that Challenged the Yachts, A Sentimental Journey), 2 volumes of autobiography (One Lone Sail: Childhood Dream and Discovery of America).

 

I am now working on the 3rd volume of my autobiography (Life Started at Forty).