About "Grandfather Project"

This project began in the summer of 2000, when I was visiting my mother's family in Hong Kong. My uncle and his wife had spent the months before clearing out their closets, in preparation for a move to their new home. "We found two boxes of notes," he told me. "Are you still interested in them?"

Before I read the contents of the boxes, I had already constructed an outline of grandfather biography: he was born to a wealthy Hong Kong family; he was the son of a concubine; he attended Columbia University, majoring in History; he made several silent films in China but these failed at the box office; he returned to the United States in the 1930s and managed a restaurant in Newark, NJ until his retirement in 1966. I wanted these "notes" only because I had seen my grandfather scribbling in his bedroom and was curious to know whether he had kept a diary.

The "notes" were in fact autobiographical stories and scripts for the stage or silver screen, written by my grandfather during his sojourn in the United States. Written--as I imagined it--in solitude on days off and late into the night. These became an obsession for me.

How This Site Is Organized

"Grandpa's Stories" is a repository of his writings, arranged according more or less chronologically. A respected colleague encouraged me to be brave enough to be his editor and publisher. However, I have limited my editing to correcting grammatical mistakes and making minor stylistic changes.

"My Stories" chronicles my interactions with his stories, as a trained historian and as a granddaughter. I experiment with emerging media to tell my stories. Each "story" may evolve into a "chapter" in the final version of this project.

As you shall discover, this site is in its earliest stage of development. I plan to add new content as the project continues to evolve. I hope that you would return again and again to review--and enjoy--each new addition.