A Very Heartache Day—January 4

A Very Heartache Day—January 4

Written by Li-Chang Kuo

On the 4^th day of January, this is a very heartache day to me for mourning my father‘s death. In 1998, I held fifty or more seminars about ‘Science & Future’, and same year I accelerated the RD of ‘IoT’ to complete Linda’s invention—‘TES’ in expecting to avoid the coming jobless problem, so I had to go Europe to urge my suppliers. On November 22, I returned to Tainan for celebrating my father’s birthday with Linda and Dean, the former VP of Chi-Mei Inc. Mr. Yuan-Chang Zhang who said that “Taiwan’s prosperity because of somebody like your father.” My father Kun-Cheng Kuo put his hand on Dean’s shoulder and we took a picture together, and I’ve never expected father soon pass away in the later few days. Thereafter, the heartache could not be swept away and continued till today or forever.

Father made many efforts to remain his health, because he suffered a lot when he was young. He found out that walking ten thousand steps per day to maintain the strong legs was a best way, but how to make it? He thus researched various methods and finally chose the ‘Tap Dance’ to practice for years and like a professional tap dancer. He did an improvisation in front of Mr. Zhang, we’re all happy for his performance. Father faced me and said: “Don’t forget me as next time you’ll go France, I’ll go with you to buy a Napoleon hat to increase the performance effects.” I promised: “Of course! Let’s go for it.” However, I've never attained my promise because of his sudden death.

Originally, I told him “I’ll come back to take you to Taichung for visiting the Lab of Aerospace Center on January 1 (in 1999).” But he replied me that “I’ll go to Taichung for your seminar by January 6…” Unexpectedly, I can no longer talk to him since then. Father was born in 1925 at the top rich family of Tainan, but everything be taken away in 1937 for the sake of my grandfather rejected the Japanese business to carry those ‘Comfort Women’ by his fleet to South-Asia. It’s very difficult to finish my father’s primary school because no money to pay the tuition, and often insulted by the teachers. Consequently, father did not enter the junior high school but to be an apprentice of dentist. He quickly learned those relevant skills about dentist; however, a conscription order came from Japanese navy to him in 1941, so he served in the navy during the World War II for production of the ‘Zero Fighter’. So that he always told about the aircrafts throughout his life. Father invented and gave many automation to others during the era of ‘White Terror’ in Taiwan, but ‘how to improve the aircrafts’ was his most favorite. He and Mr. Zhang appeared my one of ‘Science & Future’ seminars held in Tainan, I showed him my new product ‘Power Chip’ which size as thin as the stamp. Father was very excited to say that “I want live for 100-year-old to achieve the new aircrafts with you by using the power chip.” Then I heard he was taken to show tap dance on holiday, and felt headache in the evening, then be sent into the Chi-Mei Hospital. I received the information in my proclaiming journey and immediately reversed straight from Taipei to Tainan, but he had been lying in the intensive care unit in a coma. And passed away only 3 days later.

My customer, Mr. Chen who was in a plight because the vacuum tube will be replaced by the transistor, his factory director came to my workshop attempting to develop new things since 1970; my father commanded me that “You must help them as possible as you can.” Because Mr. Chen had purchased hundreds of dollar (NT$) eyelets from me when my father was put into the jail by KMT. Moreover, father accompanied Mr. Chen to New York to take care of Mr. Chen’s trouble with an American client, and brought a sample of ‘Portable Cassette Recorder’, it’s said by the Jewish buyer that “If you can make it, I’ll purchase as many as you can make.” Father gave me his instruction: “Do your best to accomplish the task for Chen.” Soon after, Mr. Chen became the first maker and exporter of ‘Portable Cassette Recorder’ from Taiwan to the United States.

When I was a kid, one day went in a narrow lane; my father held my shoulder and stepped into a small factory of bottle caps. After leaving and on the way home, I questioned my father “Can we make those bottle caps by means of our automation?” Father said, “Of course, 100 pieces per minute automatically.” I wondered that “Why do not we manufacture the bottle cap?” Father sternly warned me that “It’s an unfair competition, do not do that!” In his view, his apprentice just learned a low-end skill from him to produce a cap very hard for living, if we automatically producing caps that same as kill his apprentice, and he defined that ‘Simply Unfair Competition’, therefore, I had been starving and he looked like an impoverished man. But he told me that “To keep faith, for the time has come, we’ll be very rich in one day.” But he still looked poor and to be a ridiculed object, I became the only one who believes his faith on earth. Indeed, when the time has come, we stood immediately in December 1966 by applying his one of skills. My family was admired as a paradigm of turning-over in Tainan. In 1976, I had to be into the army, he was threatened as I handed over the properties to him that I earned in the past years.

Actually, I disagreed my father’s many thoughts and actions, such as ‘Sharing’ and ‘Cooperation’; my crucial customer asked him for introduction of several peers to divide the purchasing orders which I made efforts to maintain. My father really did introduction someone to my customer in order to replace me. And he even hindered I continued the development of ‘Precision Industry’, and stopped seeking the wealth, and forced me left Tainan for social services. My father was a great inventor, but no any patent, he was always against the so-called ‘Intellectual Properties’ (IP) and blamed “Patent is a scourge!” He said: “The inexplicable litigations caused by the patent or so-called IP to affect the peaceful society.” Good stuff should be shared with others was his principle. His most satisfaction was pending his invention or giving it to someone. He said that “Mass production? It’s really insult to my wisdom!”

My father was a brave, he came forward to rescue a ‘Communist Spy’ and ruined his career in addition to be trapped into a pitfall when Chiang Kai-shek caught those espionages of PRC in Taiwan. My father was perseverance, in times of plight, he never yields to the Authoritarian. My father convinced that “It’s more blessed to give than to receive.” Even in the days of no bread, he still expressed that “We must have the aristocratic style for it can bear more to prosperity as we gave.” Consequently, I was always starving as a kid, but my brain was deposited an industrial bible by my father, so that I could not resist or disobey his instruction.

My father eventually won the respects by the local and global friends; he made efforts to build a bridge across Tainan to San Jose (Silicon Valley) in 1975 that benefits many people. When he helped Tainan city government establishing the sister city with Kansas City, Missouri in 1978, he met Mayor Charles Wheeler who was same age as my father, and also same as realized the aircrafts. Mayor Wheeler was a captain of the ‘Thunderbirds’, my father had been trained to drive the ‘Zero Fight-jet’, and they clicked immediately and received the international friendship as Taiwan in the diplomatic situation of hardship.

Till today, the heartache can not be taken away from me, if I was according to the original plan to take him for Taichung from Tainan on that very day--January 1 of 1999, it might be escaped that catastrophe, my father perhaps alive until nowadays. This assumption is able to set up, but I was an oversight at that very moment. Therefore, many people and myself lost a mentor of life, and his dreamed aircrafts would never be accomplished. Finally I recognized that the idiom says “The tree wants standstill, yet the winds do not stop.”