My Father Kun-Cheng Kuo

My Father Kun-Cheng Kuo

God always sent the chosen ones to change the world, my father Kun-Cheng Kuo was one of them.

Recently, Joseph F. Engelberger, an American who was admired ‘Father of Robot’ and passed away on the 1st day of this December, there are many articles highly praise and honor him; Mr. Engelberger was born in 1925, grew up in the period of Great Depression, and studied at Columbia University during the World War II, then earned his master degree from Columbia in 1949; he started his business in 1961, and thereafter, developed the first robot of America named ‘Unimate’ to be the helper of factory automation. My father Kun-Cheng Kuo was born in 1926 at the most wealthy family of Tainan. For the sake of my grandfather Biao Kuo refused to use his fleet carrying ‘comfort women’ for the Japanese militarists, Japan’s officers raided all the Kuo’s properties in one night of 1937, then my father was forcibly recruited into Japan navy, until Japan surrendered in 1945, he returned hometown Tainan to start his Metal Works. I was born in 1953, a lot of automation around me at that time, I saw my father always carried a small pencil with some fragmentary paper in order to put his idea down at once. In the very difficult year of 1963, my father still completed one set of automation in addition to invent one kind of deep-drawing processing technique, and produced that special usage brass stripe for making the very fine eyelet—it can  put ten thousand pieces in my palm.

He said: "A-Chan, you must learn how to use this technology, rely on them, one day shout ‘BO’ the moment we will be away from poverty to rich…." But, year after year, no one came to purchase these fine-eyelets, and I became the only one who believed my father’s words on earth, no matter where we moved to, I had protected these automation by my life, and tirelessly day and night to practice application of realizing them; finally, I really utilized these automation to conquer the world in the days of my father was imprisoned; afterwards, I got those most bigotry Americans impressed just used his one of techniques.

The eve, my father was commanded to step into the ‘Zero Fighter’, his boss received a bad news--my uncle Kun-I Kuo died in a battle of New Guinea, and to secure my father to let him escaped the death; so that my father often said, “Life is fragile, people should be ‘help one another, share the harvest and cooperation’…” My father invented many stuffs, but he opposed that applying the patents, he said; “Patent is a world's curse, good stuff must share with others, and non-litigation is our family Instruction…” Moreover, he thought that ‘Social Service’ should be the right way to go, not pursuit of wealth endlessly. In November 1998, I celebrated his last birthday, he also performed a tap dance to former vice president Chang Yuan-Chang of Chi-Mei Company, and took his paper from his pocket to show a sketch to say how to use my ‘Power Chip’ at his new design aircraft in avoiding the air crash; however, no more than one month, I heard he was admitted to Chi-Mei hospital because of a headache, I was rush to drive the car straight from Taipei to Tainan, unfortunately, he told me he would live to be a hundred-year-old and commit to accomplish the new aircraft unable to complete for he was soon passed away on the 4th day of January in 1999, and his death became a pain at the bottom of my heart forever. 

Today, I saw an American the age similar to my father, would be able to grow up in the Great Depression, take the degree during the World War II safely, my father had to survive in the gap of death, and a dictator Chiang Kai-Shek who lost his authority from Mainland China to Taiwan in catching the Communist Spies and knocked my father into the abyss because my father helped the needy. Even though, when my father recovered and was able to help others, he would be always spare no effort, for example, just built a bridge in 1975 across the Silicon Valley to Taiwan with Mayor Janet Hayes of San Jose that already achieved many nascent entrepreneurs….

Recall that the age of reigning by the tyrant; my father’s pocket was always with some fragmentary sheet of paper and a small pencil, relied on them to create the necessary techniques of automation for achieving the Taiwan society in common prosperity , also to leave an industrial bible in my mind---

Father of a small pencil
Always with him and
Some fragmentary paper
He intently drafted up
To build the automation
Father of a small pencil
Jail could not lock his mind
Even the plots of evildoers
To trap him by iron-bar
Pencil still penetrated out
Father of a small pencil
Contributed Taiwan’s Industry
Deeply influenced his son
To create precision components
To reveal the miraculous signs