Maria K Chung (1940-2022)

To all my Alexandria friends, I have some sad news to share. On January 16, 2022, my mother, Maria Chung passed away from complications with dementia.

I am so sorry not to tell you guys about this earlier, but my brother and I just weren't ready to share news of her passing until now.

To be honest, I didn't know too much my mom's past aside from what my brother and relatives have told me. She was fairly reticent about her own personal matters. But over the last couple of years I did make an effort to learn more about her past. And what I learned is this:

She was the "consummate rebel".

My mom was born Chao-gui-rong (趙桂榮) in the city of Anhui in 1940. Her father and her uncle ran a shop in the area, but due to its mismanagement and the collapse of the Chinese economy, the business eventually folded.

In the late 1940s, the Chinese Civil war broke out between Chairman Mao and Chiang Kai-Shek. As with my father, the loss of the business for my mom's family did have one silver lining.... no longer regarded as an "evil property owner" by the Chinese Communists, they were able to escape the subsequent purge of the elite class relatively unscathed. Moreover, with my grandfather being literate and having connections, my mom and her family were able to secure safe passage to Taiwan.

Life in Taipei at the time was pretty rough for their family. My grandmother worked hand-washing clothes for other families in the area (I still remember her very swollen arthritic hands when I was young) while my grandfather worked as an accountant. It was a very difficult time; money was always tight and it was a daily struggle to survive. However, they did always provide for my mom and her two younger brothers. All three were able to go to school.

As a daughter of a lower middle-class family, my mom was not expected to really get an education, but rather to just help out at home, get married, and have kids. However, she fought these expectations in typical "Maria Chung" fashion ... she went out and got a job. In the mid/late 1950s she worked as an office manager at a Taipei trading company (國貨館). Despite constant fights with her parents about this, she would later say that it was really happy time for her. She had freedom, money, and friends. She would often roam around the city after work ... "living the single life".

Although she always denied this, according to my dad and numerous other guys that I would later meet in Taiwan,... around this time she was also a great beauty. She would often go around Taipei in very stylish business outfits to/from work ... and attract the attention of numerous male suitors. In the mid/late 1950s, there were tons of guys that wanted to marry my mom. My grandmother and other relatives often told me that around that time in the evenings, the house was always filled with guys dropping by to meet her and to give my grandparents "courtship" presents.

Since their family always lived near/around the poverty line, my grandparents really hoped my mom would marry someone rich in order the help provide for the family. In typical rebel fashion, my mom did the exact opposite... she followed her heart and married my dad ... a military guy that was actually poorer than she was. However, my dad was, according to my mom, MUCH CUTER than the other guys. My dad also had a tendency to speak his mind ... and I think this was really attractive to her.

After my parents got married, my brother George was born soon after. George and my mom followed my dad around Asia for a bit ... they lived in Thailand in the 60s. I was born a bit later and we all immigrated to the US in 1973.

We settled in Alexandria, VA near Bailey's Crossroads. My mom initially worked as timecard entry clerk at the Marriott office in Maryland. Eventually we moved to Rosemont and my parents took over a local convenience store.

When I spoke to my mom about this point in her life ... she had really mixed feelings:

Being a rebel, she loved the freedom one had living a life in the US. Things that we take for granted here ... such as being able to freely speak your mind at any time.. would be unthinkable back in Asia ... In addition, she loved the fact that the store gave my brother and myself a chance to have a better life.

However, She was also really lonely. She came to a country where she didn't really understand the language and had few friends or family. It was quite a change from the previous "high society" lifestyle that she was used to back in Taipei. I never did really understand what she went through until I first went back to Taiwan almost 15 years later.

I arrived at place where I couldn't read any street signs nor understand what anyone was saying ... on that first day back, I suddenly understood.

She told me that although she and my dad did discuss selling the store and moving back on numerous occasions; they never did so primarily because of me. Since I had entirely started in the US school system where people were encouraged to ask questions and challenge authority; it would be a nightmare for me if I had gone back to an Asian school where students were basically told to memorize things. Back there ... if a teacher told you 2+2=5 ... there was no asking "why" ... you just had to accept it.

After I graduated university, my parents sold the store in 1995 and moved to Ohio to be closer to my brother and myself. For the next ten years of so, it was pretty much the happiest time for them. They were free from the daily grind, and still had good health. During this time they travelled to China, Japan, Europe and numerous other places. Both of them also tended to their vast garden, entertained guests from Taiwan, and basically just relaxed.

My dad was diagnosed with cancer in 2004, and from that point onwards until his death in 2012, my mom spent ALL her waking hours and energies caring for him. She would get up early in the morning to prepare food, then spend the entire afternoon cleaning the house and washing my dad's clothes. Although my dad got progressively sicker in the end, she did her best to keep the house immaculate and always greeted everyone with a smile.

After my dad passed, my mom returned back to work at a part-time job in a hotel. Despite being in her 70s at this point, she was still a rebel... she didn't want to sit around all day and do nothing. In between her time off, she visited me in Europe and traveled back to Taiwan to see her brother and friends. I often looked back at this point in her life with awe ... aside from my mom, I've never seen a 70+ year-old lady be able to travel alone on a 15+ international flight with connections in foreign countries.

Despite everything ... even at the end. my mom would still always look at her life with wonder ... she would have never predicted that an uneducated village girl from Anhui would end up spending her "golden years" in Ohio ... living "the American Dream."

Her passing really hit me a LOT harder than my father's ... and I never knew how much she meant to me while she was here. As with so many other things in life ... you NEVER know what you have until it's gone.

She was good friend and great mother. I hope I can meet her again someday.....