Brother Fu: Chu Nieng Fu and the Last Fly Tigers

Chu Nieng Fu 趙仰富, known in the family as "Brother Fu", was the son of Chu Tui Goon's brother. Before and during World War II, Tui Goon and her husband Hong Hock How adopted him into their family, hoping to give him the opportunity to one day emigrate to the United States. Hock How treated him as a son, and to their children he was "Fu Goh" 富哥 — "(Elder) Brother Fu."

Hong Kong, December 1948: Chu Nieng Fu in pilot's gear, seated on the fuselage of a Curtiss P-40 Warhawk. Fu Goh inscribed the photo to his younger cousin Jack with their names, and the date and location: 連卓表弟，仰富表兄  卅七年十二月於香港

A photograph from around 1938 captures this bond: on the rooftop of the family home in Canton, Fu Goh stands with Larry — the eldest of the Hong children — and a young Jack, the three practicing kung fu together in easy camaraderie, while the clouds of the Second Sino-Japanese War gathered.

Canton, China, c. 1938: Fu Goh (Chu Nieng Fu) with his younger cousins Larry and Jack Hong, practicing gung fu on the rooftop of the Hong family home in Canton.

Canton, c. 1938: Fu Goh and cousin Larry (Back)
cousins Jack, Lily, and Paul (Front)

Later that year, Japan's southward advance forced the family from Canton. Tui Goon and the children first relocated to Hong Kong, eventually joining Hock How in Rangoon, Burma, where he managed the assembly of American trucks used to carry supplies to the Chinese resistence. In December 1941, Japan expanded the war — striking Pearl Harbor to the east and driving southwest into Indochina. The family escaped Rangoon in late February 1942, just weeks before it fell. They spent a month traversing the treacherous Burma Road to Kunming, a vital wartime hub in southwest China. 

Rose Chin Hong (1939-2026)

Rose Chin Hong

Rose Chin Hong was born on May 17, 1939, in Oakland, California, to Chin Pak Yick 陳伯釴 and Tso Mee Shew 曹美秀. Her Chinese name was Chin Joong Sen 陳仲仙. She died on April 23, 2026, at age 86, from complications following surgery, surrounded by loved ones. She is interred with her husband, Jack L. Hong, at Skylawn Memorial Park in San Mateo, California.

Oakland Beginnings

Rose grew up in a small Oakland Chinatown house filled with family: an older sister, four younger brothers, and nine older half‑siblings from her widowed father’s first marriage. Money was tight, her father was strict, and there were no after‑school activities or extras. Rose went to school and then came straight home.

May 16, 1941, Oakland, CA: Rose, brother Allen, mother Tso Mee She, and older sister Mabel

There were, however, a chicken coop, a vegetable garden, simple celebrations, and a pair of roller skates. She often recalled skating around the block “around and around and around,” happy just to move. She was the quiet thoughtful one in a family that wasn't shy about being loud in house where you couldn't help but be on top of each other. Those early years in Oakland shaped her lifelong unflappable calm and practicality.

Three Chinese Couplets for Jimmy Bo-Gar Chin: A Child's Death, A Family's Grief

Jimmy Bo-Gar Chin was born on May 4, 1948, in Oakland, California's Chinatown. He was the youngest child of Chin Pak Yick and Tso Mee Shew. He was born into a large family with two older sisters, three older brothers, and nine living half-siblings for Pak Yick's first wife who passed away when she was 40-years-old. The baby of the family, he was five years younger than his closest sibling, and the only of his siblings to be born after both World War II and the Great Depression.

On January 10, 1954, Jimmy was hit by a car and died in front of the family's 326 7th Street home. He was five years and seven months old. His death was a crushing blow to the entire family especially his mother. Tucked into his youngest sister Rose's collection of family photographs are two images that together tell the story of that grief.

This story is a follow-up to a previous post about my translation of a Chin family gravestone at the Mountain View Cemetery in Oakland, California. The grave is shared by Jimmy; twin brothers who died within weeks of birth in 1924; and three adult siblings who died in old age. However, the emotional core of gravestone inscription is the family’s grief at Jimmy’s untimely death in 1954, a grief that is more apparent when combined with the three handwritten inscriptions on the photographs below.

The first photograph shows Jimmy with his mother on Christmas morning in 1953. In the second Jimmy poses with his siblings two days later against a brick wall. Written on each are poetic couplets — pressed heavily into the paper in blue ballpoint ink by Jimmy's father, Pak Yick. He composed them in the classical Chinese form called 輓聯 (wǎnlián), the mourning couplet, and together they form a remarkable triad of grief: public sorrow, private rage, and reflective acceptance.

The photo below shows Jimmy with his mother on Christmas Day 1953, 16 days before his tragic death.

Jimmy with his mother, Tso Mee Shew
December 25, 1953, 7th St House, Oakland, CA