Mr. and Mrs. Li Yu-fong (李毓芳）

Mr. and Mrs. Li were my parents’ neighbors for many, many years, from the time they were all in Chungking and all during the Sino-Japanese war time. Mr. Li was working with my father in those early years, and Mrs. Li played mahjong with my mother for decades. In Taiwan, they lived quite close to our home on Wenzhou Street. Every time we visited our parents home there, they would come and bring some dishes or fruit to our house to show their friendship. My parents took the Li’s kind gestures for granted, as they considered them part of our extended family. In China, this kind of friendship was quite common. However, it is something I have never been able to achieve, because our circumstances in the U.S. are not conducive to that kind of friendship. We live much more independently, which is not always a blessing.