 Getting the journey. And this is really a special journey. Kong Hi Fa Choy have a visitor today who knows exactly what that means. Robert is a dear friend and Kong Hi Fa Choy is Honolulu's way of saying Chinese New Year. Yeah, Kong Hi Fa Choy. Yeah. Yeah. So tell us what it is in Chinese. Well, the actual original meaning for the Kong Hi Fa Choy actually means wish you rich. And it was used by many Cantonese or people in Hong Kong. But the rest of Chinese, they actually use Xin Nian Kui Le in Chinese Mandarin. That means happy new year. So Kong Hi Fa Choy actually wish you rich fortune. Oh, this was a gift from one Chinese New Year. And it had the tag on it that said Kong Hi Fa Choy. Maybe the other side. Let me see. It had the little tag on it that said Kong Hi Fa Choy. Yeah, it could be. Yeah. It blocked the J-Potion. I don't see that. Maybe the top, the red color one. Yeah. In Chinatown, right now, everybody has. Okay. Yeah, it's got some some reflection. Yeah. Yeah. So Kong Hi Fa Choy is actually Cantonese pronunciation. In Mandarin, it's a Kong Si Fa Choy. That means congratulations. You got fortune. Yeah. So again, in official Chinese Mandarin, happy new year is Xin Nian Kui Le. This Chinese Happy New Year or Chinese New Year is celebrated all over the world. Yes. People love, love, love Chinese New Year. Now, what is the difference in Chinese New Year and Western New Year? Okay. Well, actually, Chinese New Year is being celebrated in China about probably about 3800 years already. Because it was agricultural life. People use the new calendar to calculate. So it's been celebrated Chinese New Year all these years, you know, about 3800 years ago. The first time China actually Chinese celebrated Western New Year is actually start from 1912. That's actually after after the after San Yixing, actually, San Yixing, the revolution over through the Manchurian dynasty. And he established Republic of China. And that actually the first year of Western New Year celebrate, you know, it's 1912 January 1st. Yeah. So but Chinese New Year is way longer than that. And because China was such a great, you know, big country in ancient times. So almost majority Asian country, they are celebrated this, but they call it as a lunar New Year. So they use the lunar calendar? Lunar calendar too. Yeah. So in Korea, Vietnam, you know, in Singapore, you know, Indonesia, there's a lot of Asian country they all celebrate. And the same lunar calendars, but they call it Lunar New Year. But it's not like ours is the first of January. And is there's more like a lunar calendar would be the first day of spring in the Americans, which is March? It's dynamic. Yes, there's no fixed day every year different because every year different. It go by the moon, right? The lunar calendars. So the lunar calendars calendar is January 1st. It is, you know, we call it Chinese New Year. Yeah. So every year, sometime January, sometime beginning of February, sometime mid February. So every year, you know, you fracture every year different. But it's the biggest holiday. It is. It's the biggest holiday in China. Yeah, because it's celebration for that. It lasts, it is two weeks until, until the first warm moon, which is Chinese New Year, you know, start on January 1st. It adds a celebration until January 15. We call it Lenten Festival. That's the end of the celebration. So it lasts for a long time. Yeah. Well, at least in Honolulu, it's at least two weeks. Yeah, two to three weeks, not normal. Yeah. In, in, in the ancient times, sometimes it lasts for more than two weeks, you know, a month. Yeah. So actually it's called the, the character of Chinese character also say Spring Festival. Chunjie, yeah, Spring Festival. So that would be the full moon? No, Chun Spring Festival is actually Chinese New Year. Same thing. Yeah. So we mentioned Sanyang San. And for everybody that's listening, the statue of Sanyang San is right next to the Hawaii Theater, right in, in China. In Chinese cultural plaza. Yeah. Right. And cultural plaza, yes, both places. Yeah. That's right. That's right. Yeah. That's a bigger one in cultural plaza. I wanted the cultural plaza, yes. Yeah. Yeah. So, so. And of course, we tend to think of Sanyang San as ours because he went to Ilani school and whatnot. And the Hawaiians spent so much money sending to China for the revolution. So, yeah, Hawaiians, you know, he's ours. Well, he is a father of the Republic of China. Yeah. Yeah. He brought in the Western democracy to China. Right. So it's a. That's why I said he's ours. Yeah. Greatest, greatest, you know, person in the recent Chinese history because he's the one changing the whole system in China. Yeah. Yeah. So. And, yeah. And change those horrible things they did to women's feet, took them off the women's feet, their shoes, you know, what were they called that binding the women's feet? Actually, that's Manchurian custom. So the way they do that is what I, when I read the history is because you tie your foot to almost three inches. So you make you, first of all, you, it's tall. It makes you look taller. When you walk, you also make women more femaleized. You can shake, shake. And that's the way that only rich family can do that because it's a poor family. You got to go to the farm. You cannot walk that way. You can't do farming. Yeah. Yeah. So that is a, you know, to privilege for the rich family, wealthy family, because nobody can afford to do that. So, so your wealthy family, yes, you do that, but it's torture. It's a lot of it is torture. It's torture. Yeah. So. But that was one of the first things I learned about Sun Yat-sen. Yeah. Because he doesn't like it. When he was young, he saw his families, you know, the female had to go through that. And, you know, he feel, no, we got to change his kind of custom. He's terrible. Yeah. But I do, for anybody, just take the time. When you go to the cultural plaza, there's a plaque under the statue and you can read all about Sun Yat-sen. And then there's a little one at the airport. And then there's one by the Hawaii Theater. See, I told you, we love him. Just took him in. And I think there's one. Yeah. He is a great, great philosopher because he promote the whole world, everybody, a brother and sister. He promote the peace for the whole world. Yeah. That's his, you know, philosophy. Even though he, actually, he was a doctor, medical doctor. Yeah. But his love and care about you and the people, he promote the whole world. That's what he's saying in the statue in China's country of brother. The whole world of peace. We are all families. All families. Yeah. So, now you said you have lived here in Honolulu a long time. Yeah. I actually moved to Honolulu in 1988 until now. So actually, it's my, the place I stayed the longest, it's longer than the time I spent in Taiwan. So where are you from originally? I'm from Taiwan. Yeah. So, yeah, I came after I finished my college, I went to California State University for my master's degree in business management to start with that first. Yeah. So that's 40 years ago. 40 years ago. So I spent too soon on my life journey in USA. And 90% of time pretty much in Honolulu, Hawaii, 30 some years. Yeah. So I have a question here. Do Asian people travel? Oh, yeah. Sure. It's very important for Asian people to travel during New Year's. Yeah. Let me explain a little bit in the world history. This is the biggest migration of traffic in the world. It's talking about being a people travel around the nation because New Year's Eve is the biggest day for the whole family to unify together. They have New Year's Eve dinners. So all the family, they left home, all the people they left home to big city to work. But New Year's Eve, everybody rush home to unify with a family member to enjoy the big dinner. That is very, very important event. So people left the big metropolitan, go back to their hometown. So the big city become ghost town. So quiet because everybody went back. Yeah. So, yeah. Well, what about now that we have the pandemic and it's worldwide, how do they come together for this time? All of these people, what about well together with the pandemic? How do they handle that? According to news, the government are trying to do a lot of education, informational education to teach people. Just do a small gathering because this is a big disasters and we need to keep social distance. So this year's celebration might be smaller, just like our recent football, right? You have smaller gathering with your very close family member or friend only, but don't do it, big gathering. So I think this year probably will be reduced quite a bit. Taiwan actually is still pretty good, because what happened, they managed the pandemic pretty well. Can you imagine they have about 24 million population now? They only have a couple hundred cases. So they managed the pandemic very, very well. Yeah. So I actually working with a Taiwanese consulate here and a community member while working in the 2020 census, we actually do a lot of donation fundraising that helping the government office, helping the community. We buy a lot of PPE, the mask or sanitizers to help the community. But in Taiwan, actually they have very good management of this pandemic. So my needs just get married about two, three months ago, and they have a big party, no problem at all. So I think they manage very well. Yeah. So Hawaii, we are islands similar to Taiwan. I think if everybody all work together with the government, we also keep social distance, wear your mask, make sure you wash your hand often. I think we can put this under control a lot faster than any other state in mainland, because we have a big ocean, you know, separate. Yeah. Well, that helps. Tell me, now when did you come to Hawaii after you went to school in California, and then you came to Hawaii? Well, I went to California after I finished my first master's degree in business management. I actually went to Texas for my second master's degree in computer science. And after that, before I came to Hawaii, actually while I was working, I was transferred to Japan, stayed in Japan for almost, you know, two, three years. I was the first person went to Japan to set up Apple Computer Service Center to help all US Federal Agency, especially military, because there's no global warranty for Apple Computer at that time. So and after that, at ADA, you know, I changed my job from American company to Mitsubishi. And they actually transferred me back to USA because that time, Congress passed the regulation by America only. So all the US Federal Agency and military had to buy American product, you know, then I was transferred back to state. But I didn't expect to come to Honolulu. I thought we'll go back to mainland. And my boss said, you know, you stay in Honolulu, closer to Japan, I can come to visit you easy. And you can go back to mainland, you know, very easy. So that's why I'm in charge of North America, you know, operations. But I, you know, I stoned station station in mainland, I stayed in Honolulu. That's why I came to Hawaii by accident, you know, and become the longest place I stay. I love this. It's great. This is so much better than the mainland. Yeah, it really is. Yeah, so I think Mitsubishi in Nagasaki. Oh, huge, huge, huge. Yeah, actually, it is probably the top three biggest enterprise in Japan, Mitsubishi, Mitsui, Sumitomo, those are the big enterprise. So, and I fortunately, you know, I was able to involve myself into the culture over there. Dr. Sengisen, he actually stayed in Japan to help fund, you know, raise the funding for revolution. She actually stayed in Japan quite a bit of time at Kobe. So he has a very, you know, close contact, not only Honolulu, but also in Japan. So I was able to see, you know, where he did it, you know, and I, you know, it's kind of a very interesting life journey that, you know, God arranged this and able to expect I come to Hawaii, which in my mind, so Hawaii is only for, you know, honeymoon or for vacation only. It is that there were real people that actually lived here, huh? Yeah, the same thing I work for US Census Bureau. They transfer, you know, even though I report I work in LA, but let's say you handle Honolulu side in charge of Hawaii. So I in charge of the whole Hawaii, Chinese, you know, territory and the community stuff. Well, oh my goodness, there's so many languages in Hawaii and Honolulu. Let me put it that way. So many different Asian languages in Chinatown itself. There's seven different Asian languages. Just China itself, we have more than a hundred different dialogue. It's totally different. Even when I was in Taiwan at home, we speak Taiwanese. That's totally different with Mandarin. So when I first went to school, I don't understand what the teacher talking about because they talk differently. They speak Mandarin. So it's giving me an opportunity. I learned Mandarin too. The other thing is my parents, when they were in Taiwan, that's during the World War II, they actually, they were Japanese because Taiwan was ruined by Japan for 51 years. So they were under Japanese education. So I learned Japanese when I was young kids. I don't even know a lot about Japanese. So the environment gave me opportunity to learn something new, especially language. And you naturally learned it. That benefit me. So when I go to Japan, a lot of vocabulary I know already because, oh, I learned those when I was young kids. So that's different. So what are you teaching now at HPU? I actually teach computer science courses, including like, you know, management information system, project management, system analysis. And, you know, it's my hobby. I try to, you know, share my knowledge experience to all the young generation. And I think teaching, actually, I've been taught in university for almost 30 years since I started working here. You said teaching a young generation. I thought that this young generation came into the world knowing everything about this digital world. Young people just know everything, you know, how they create constantly. That's why, you know, they were born with it or something. I don't know. The theory for that is just like, you were born in USA, you know how to speak, but you may not know how to write, how to know the grammar, how to, you know, use English properly. You still got to go to school to learn English. Same thing, you know how to use digital, you don't know how to computer, but there's a lot of theory, you know, behind the scene, and you got to learn that and give you better skill. You can, you know, improve yourself. Project management, that's another totally different stuff. You know, in order to make the project, you know, we have so many projects in town. The biggest one is our rail system, but the project management philosophy, if you don't manage it properly, you could loss a million or billion dollars. That's very important, you know. They're good at losing money, so they got that one. Yeah, they're good at that. I'll speak to the challenging one thing I want to, you know, mention to you. I, you know, just I mentioned about everybody go home together together during the New Year's Eve. Right. And January 1st, that's another big travel time is everybody go to visit either your friend or your boss, you know, your relatives. That's January 1st. You go over there, we call Walk Spring. Walk Spring. This means the spring festival, you, when you go to visit all your friends, good friends, relatives, even your boss, and you bring some gifts to visit. That's January 1st. But January 2nd in the Lunar calendar is a time you go back to your mom's home. So the wife, they will get excited. The night of January 1st, I used to saw my mom or very busy packing small suitcase and some, you know, souvenir. And to take us with my father, we all go to visit my, you know, my mom's father's, you know, my mother, the parents, you know. So it's countryside, so we went to over there almost 50 years ago, I went there. When I walk and get out the tricycle, at that time they steal the tricycle, you know, the people, the human riding the tricycle to take you to countryside. When you get out of the tricycle, ready to walk into the village, everybody know you are so-and-so's grandson from what city you come back home to visit. So that's why it's a big travel time from New Year's Eve, people travel home. January 1st, people go to visit their friend relatives, you know, in town. January 2nd, you had to travel back to your mom's home and stay there a couple of days and then January 5th, you know, around 5th you go back. And all the business, all the company, they start their business on January 6th. So everything's closed until January 6th? Yeah, a lot of business that way. But in the agricultural life, they're still celebrating. Temple, there are lots of different types of celebrations. Another interesting thing is New Year's Eve, everybody had to clean their house, sweep, and before that, actually, you know, the legend, the myth say, in the heaven, they send God to station your home. You know, the ancient time, you cook by big stove, you put charcoal in. Each one has, you know, a guardian station in your house. Before New Year's Eve, those God will go back to heaven to report to Jay Dynasty, the emperor of Jay Dynasty, what happened to this house? Are they behaved good by citizen or not? So that's the old tradition. When I was young kids, I experienced that. Then you want them to say good word about your family. So you had to prepare some food and see them off. Just give them some gift, say some good things. So next year, we have a good life. So they go back to return back to heaven to report to Jay Dynasty emperor. Then January 5th, they return, we got to welcome them back. So a lot of ceremony, you go to temple, do a lot of different kind of stuff. So that's that tradition gradually fade out, because in that real life, you know, so I, but I did experience that very interesting, you know, custom. Now, tell me, speaking of customs, you said this is the year of the ox. What does that mean? Well, actually, again, let's go back to Jay Dynasty. The myth say, the emperor of Jay Dynasty, the heavens, he invite a lot of guests to visit, you know, his palace. And they go by the order of whoever come to visit. First, you will be the first one. So at that time, the ox actually very due diligence, you walk very, you know, you know, ox working hard. So he very due diligence, as soon as he received invitation, he start walking hard. And the red, as the region say, they ask the ox, can I, can you give me a ride? You know, I can go with you together. So ox say, Oh, fine, sure. So he, he ride on ox head. But as soon as they reached there, almost getting to the palace, the red jump down. So he become number one. So the first one is, is red. Ox is second. And the third is tiger. And then rabbit, you know, so total 12, you know, animals for the simple. And the myth say that was because the speed, you know, who come to the palace of Jay, you know, emperor, Jay Dynasty emperor, the first, he will be the first, you know. So, so red, not see what year red, this year, year ox. And people say it's good year because ox work a very hard working, you know, animals. And, you know, is very, you know, general, you know, gender, you know, general, you know, generous, you know, kind self. So this year might be a good year. Yeah, people working hard. Use a good year. At last year was terrible. Yeah, we are all going to say that ox is going to bring us a good year. Yeah. Yeah, we all hope so. We need it. We need it. We need stabilize, you know, our economy by, you know, you know, controlling, you know, the pandemic. Yeah, this is, you know, Yeah, we can use a good year. Yeah. Yeah. So we have 12. So that in America, then we had the same year. So that when you were born was somebody figures out that that was the year of such and such, right? I don't know who made the decision. Yeah. But listen, we are just about out of time. And it's been a real pleasure with you spending time with you. And you will come back. Then we can do all 12 of them. I know every one of them. Sure. You will come back. We have just about out of time. And I have so enjoyed this time with you. Well, thank you very much. Aloha. Happy new year. And congratulations. Yeah. Thank you. Happy new year. Yeah.