Hwei-Ge (慧 哥)

Ge-ge (哥哥) in Chinese means older brother. Hwei-ge is actually my cousin, a female cousin; and she is from my mother's side. Her mother was my mother's sister, who was the one that gave my mother three silver dollars so that my mother could get an education to start with. Hwei-ge was one of the two cousins who later came out from the countryside with my mother in order to get an education. In short, she was with my mother since she was a teenager! To me, she was there from the start, she has always been a family member. To call her a brother is to try to say that she is even closer than a sister. That was, at least, the Chinese thinking!

In 1950, she was considered too old to get into a University again. So she started to work at National Taiwan University as an accounting clerk. She was staying then at the University girls' dormitory on campus and waiting for a permanent place to be built for single University female employees. We started to chat quite a bit to each other. I told her about all my girlfriends, and she talked to me about all the single males who were interested in her. Since she has always been a very attractive lady (see picture below), there were always a lot of males around her. Just like the bees around some flowers.

I do not remember on what occasion we went out to take a picture together in 1951. Here it is: my favorite "older brother":