Dr. Samuel S. M. Chou

Here is a small collection of pictures of my father from recent family gatherings and events. First, a couple of oldies but goodies. Above, of course, is a picture from his school days in Tokyo, Japan, with his beloved violin. Below is an image from what must be Christmas 1961-62, in Madison, Wisconsin, with Aunt Miko, Uncle Paul, and the Man Called Acheh. Those drapes are amazing!

In the summer of 2008, before my parents moved to California, we all got together to enjoy one last round of golf at the Eagles Landing Par 3 in Happy Valley, Oregon, and to talk about our plans for the move.

 

At Thanksgiving-time, 2008, Donna and I took my folks to Japan, to the southern island of Kyushu. Here we are on the grounds of the Imperial Palace in Tokyo. My father told me stories about visiting the palace as a grade school student, and seeing the Emperor in some ceremony or other.

 

We took the train to Kyushu, traveling through the Kanmon Tunnel, which our grandfather, who had started his career as a Japanese train stationmaster, had some part in planning and building. Here we are enjoying a local seafood and noodle dish in Imari called champon – such a memorable bowl.

The image below left is from the ceramics village at Okawachiyama, and below right is the approach to Kumamoto Castle which was restored and re-opened to an amazing level in April of 2008, but then damaged by an earthquake in 2016; we were very lucky to have been able to see it in that short window. Below those images is a picture of our return trip through Tokyo, with Uncle Keisuke and on the platform at the train station. It was a very nostalgic trip for my father, with stories of how he dreamed of being a samurai like Miyamoto Musashi, whose spirit haunts the area, in seclusion in a cave, meditating, and absorbing the wisdom of the world.

 

 

Here are some pictures of some fun times with family, making really-really big soap bubbles in the summer of 2009, with Reiko and Itsu, and Miko and Paul.

 

In June, 2009, we had a little birthday gathering for my father, and played some golf at Mariners Point.

 

The below images are from move-in day at the Peninsula Regent, February 2010. My parents asked Donna and I to shop for, and furnish their condo. We went very twentieth-century modern, with simple clean shapes, but those dining chairs were temporaries. The other picture is from Thanksgiving, 2011.

 

 

The next set of images are from the 2010 Family Reunion, in the "luxury box" at AT&T Park in San Francisco. I had always wanted to take my father to a baseball game, and as we knew it would be difficult to get him into the stands, we thought to get a box for the reunion so we could all enjoy each others' company. Matthew taught him all about rally caps. 

 

 

Here we are in May, 2012, near Lake Siskiyou. We were traveling to clear the house in Portland, and driving back to San Mateo with a mini-van full of old posessions. Going through their possessions was quite a chore for everybody, but the trip was actually very enjoyable. We had a nice lunch, rockin' the Kangol lakeside, and drove home with lots of trinkets and memories.

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UPDATE: My cousin in Japan sent me this link to an obituary piece on Formosa TV (translation by Google Translate).

"Overseas Taiwan independence sports pioneer Chou Shi-ming passed away at 88 years old - News About People

[News About People] promoted the Taiwan independence movement overseas for life. He was the founding president of the "North American Taiwanese Physician Association", Chou Shi-ming who passed away last week and enjoyed his life as 88 years old. Chou Shi-ming is an international neuropathology authority. When he practiced in the United States in 1963, he The Kuomintang believed that it was in contact with the Taiwan independence movement and was listed as a blacklist. It could not return to Taiwan. However, Chou Shi-ming and his wife, who are also physicians, were not afraid of authoritarian pressure and continued to struggle for Taiwan."

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UPDATE 2: Another news article from Liberty Times Net sent by a friend of my parents (translation by Google Translate).

Freedom Square, Miss Zhou Weiming
Freedom Square" Miss Zhou Weiming Physician - Free Newsletter
2018-09-14 06:00
◎ Chen Moaning 

Chou Shi-ming, the founding president of the North American Taiwanese Physicians Association, passed away last week at the age of eighty-eight. The younger generation may be a bit strange to Chou Shi-ming and Wu Shiu-hwei. They are high-ranking students of the Taiwan University of Medicine in the 1950s. When Dr. Chou Shi-ming was about to get a Ph.D. in the United States, he was blacklisted by the special agents of the Chinese Nationalist Party. The consulates wanted Chou to write a repentance. The book guarantees that it will no longer participate in any activities against the government. Chou doctors insisted on not accepting it. Because the passport could not be postponed, Chou and his wife had lived a life without nationality and faced the fate of being sent back to Taiwan. Later, he taught West Virginia University and state legislator Staggers to successfully persuade the federal government to grant Chou Shi-ming's right of abode on the grounds that Chou Shi-ming was "an important health scientist indispensable to West Virginia." 

According to academic evaluation, if Chou is not a health problem, he will delay the research time, and he should have the chance to become a Nobel laureate. This shows his academic achievements. Unfortunately, most Taiwanese students do not dare to worship because of the blacklist. He is a teacher. Most of the students he teaches are foreigners, especially Japanese. He also has a feature that in addition to painting, he also likes music and pulls a wonderful violin. According to him, he still catches up with Dr. Wu Shiu-hwei because of the violin. 

In August 2006, the Taiwan independence league opened a committee in Portland. During the evening, Dr. Chou played the cello. His original specialty was the violin. He changed the cello because of Parkinson's disease. Particularly peaceful. In August 2016, the author went to San Francisco to visit the couple of physicians. When he entered the door, he found that he turned the ward into a studio, and there were many finished products on the wall. There was a professional painter's momentum. From any angle, he was not like a patient. The nurse said that I have never seen such a busy patient. 

Chou and his wife are the predecessors of the Taiwan independence movement. They are even more extraordinary in academics. However, in the political movement's persistence or academic achievement, Chou is not necessarily unprecedented. However, there are very few people like him who do not occupy the stage. Grab the stage and cause internal wars. The couple of Chou and Chou did not have this problem. The reason is that Chou has a variety of expertise to satisfy the sense of accomplishment and will not grab the stage. 

People with more than two specialties may rely on one of their specialties to eat, and this feat may not be their favorite feat because they need to compete with others. People with a second specialty, because they don't have to rely on the second feat, so they don't have to compete with others, they just compete with the past, and they are always making progress and satisfying their sense of accomplishment. Only a person with expertise, because it depends on it to eat, competition with people is inevitable, and even the habit of developing unscrupulous means, of course, not happy, so it is very important to have more than two specialties. 

(The author is a retired professor at Sun Yat-sen University and president of the Taiwan Security Promotion Association)