Our Better and Worse Halves: A Chinese Herbalist Tries to Find Connection, Balance and Integrity

Life is full of joy, pleasure, agony, frustration, as well as inspiration. Besides savoring the joys and pleasures, a rewarding life means learning some lessons from all our experiences. One way is trying to find deeper connections with the people and things around us, either physically or spiritually. This is what I have attempted to do in this writing project. This book presents my life stories beginning in the early 1950’s as a Chinese boy growing up in South Vietnam, moving on to Hong Kong, immigrating and finally retiring in the United States. Rather than telling my stories in a chronology, I have chosen to do it in 20 chapters each describing a special episode or issue as I personally experienced. Despite all the sorrows mixed with joys, it was exciting and educational to have gone through many big dramas swirling around me. My stories relate to the following: (1) Dealing with my cultural identity as an overseas Chinese living in Southeast Asia and the United States; (2) My upbringing in both Buddhist and Catholic faiths. (3) The impacts of the Vietnam war on my family; (4) The termination of discriminatory Western colonialism in Vietnam and Hong Kong; (5) Working in the stratified Hong Kong Civil Service; (6) The rise of communist China as it opens up and embraces capitalism; (7) The return of Hong Kong to Chinese rule; (8) My college education at UC Berkeley during a turbulent time; (9) Working and raising a family in Silicon Valley in the midst of the Electronics Revolution; (10) The thorny issues of healthcare access, college finance, and housing inflation in the United States; (11) The difficulties of maintaining a middle-class standard of living in the face of business and government corruption; (12) The emerging Energy Revolution that many Americans cannot fully embrace; and finally, (13) My coming home to follow Dad’s footsteps as a Chinese herbalist. Read more