LA 2005 Gathering, Recap

Album: LA2005 Gathering, Recap

Where: Tsai Kuang’s residence in Tustin, California, USA.

When: 9/28/2005 ~ 10/1/2005.

Who:

Mei-Chi (美琪), Yu-Teh (豫德), Chienli (茜莉), Tsai Kuang (蔡光), Yung-Way (永慰), Chi-Yen (霽顏), Zhi-Shun (之舜), An-Yu (安隅), Kai-Ching (開慶 ), Shiaw-Guang (孝光).

[The following article is taken from an e-mail from Tsai Kuang to Sying-Syang (興祥) on 10/12/2005, recapturing the coming and going of the LA2005 Gathering.]

Sying-Syang,

Here's the "report" that I owe you on the NTU_Math77 gathering on 9/29/2005 in LA. Be warned that it's just me thinking out loud and trying very hard to recall something that happened almost two weeks ago!

First, the nitty-gritty. The whole thing was started by a chance encounter between Yu-Teh(豫德) & Mei-Chi (美琪) at Calgary, Canada! They were both planning to attend their high school reunion which was scheduled from 9/30/2005 through 10/1/2005 on board a cruise ship that sailed from LA to Ensenada, Mexico, and back to LA. I guess the two ladies simply declared it's a good idea to rally the classmates in LA and have a gathering of some sort. Their plan of attack: call Jing-Chung (敬中)! Bad luck for Jing-Chung, who was on-hook for an out-of-town business trip during the targeted gathering time frame, he had no choice but to call me up. That phone call occurred on 9/9/2005, and the hot potato was passed into my hand! Thanks to Jing-Chung, who gave me two names, Yi-Lung (義隆) & An-Yu(安隅), and I easily secured their blessing and commitment for the gathering on 9/29/2009. (Yi-Lung had to go back to Taiwan on 9/14/2005 for teaching duty, and his wife, Ping-Ching(屏鏡), whom we bothered a lot when they were studying in UC Santa Barbara, ended up joining the gathering gang on his behalf.) I turned around and made contact with Zhi-Shun (之舜), Chi-Yen (霽顏) and Chienli (茜莉), whom I more or less kept in touch throughout my years in USA, and they quickly jumped on board. Their action was critical: Chi-Yen had to fly 5 hours from New Jersey, Chienli had to fly 3 hours from Texas, and Zhi-Shun had to drive 6 hours from San Francisco! From that point on no arm-twisting was really needed: no one I called ever argued it's too far, and everyone I reached showed great interest in attending the gathering. Some of the classmates are unlucky, however, and cannot make it due to standing commitment. [Lung-Kee (隆基), for example, had to chair a PhD qualifying exam involving 12 students around the gathering time frame.] All said and done, we had a total of 10 classmates attending the 9/29/2005 LA Gathering: 3 ladies (Mei-Chi, Chienli, Yu-Teh), and 7 gentlemen (Zhi-Shun, Chi-Yen, An-Yu, Kai-Ching, Yung-Way, Shiaw-Guang, me).

Next, the gathering itself. With a few exceptions, most classmates attending the gathering had too short a time together. (This is something we must keep in mind when planning the 30-year all-cast reunion in 2007!) Exception #1: Zh-Shun & Chienli arrived early in the afternoon of 9/28/2005, so they and I had quite a few good long chatting sessions. Exception #2: Chi-Yen & Yung-Way left late in the afternoon of 10/1/2005, so they and I also had many good long chatting sessions.

Yu-Teh arrive around noon 9/29/2005, joining Zhi-Shun, Chienli, Chi-Yen and me for a quick Japanese lunch. (Zhi-Shun foot the lunch bill!) I then ran around town picking up Yung-Way and Shiaw-Guang from the local airport near UC Irvine and joined the other 4 early birds at my house. (These are the 7 "early arrivals" in Zhi-Shun's photo album.) Shortly after we took that early-arrival picture, it was Zhi-Shun's turn to run around town and picked up Mei-Chi who, another believe it or not, just finished giving a talk at UCI Math Department. An-Yu and Ping-Ching arrived at my door steps while Zhi-Shun was running around. (For the record: Mei-Chi ended up offering all of us a free lunch for not showing up to mess up her talk! This is something to remember when attending the 30-year all-cast reunion!) The complete convergence occurred around 630pm when Kai-Ching finally arrived. From that point on everything simply ran all by themselves: multiple parallel conversations over 15-dimension vector spaces was the only way I could describe what transpired! Around 8pm a bonfire was set in my backyard and the parallel conversations gained quite a few more dimensions. Old friends didn't seem to need (nor have) much snack or drink around the bonfire: everyone simply kept on chatting, and chatting, and chatting, as if there were no tomorrow! Alas, An-Yu, Ping-Ching and Yu-Teh had to leave around midnight - they all had a long drive back to earth! Kai-Ching also had to leave around midnight - he had a short drive, but with two young kids on his laps! The remaining die-hard 7 stood ground through the night and did yet more chatting. (One very spooky observation here: the more we sit around and chat about nothing important, the more long-forgotten memory of the good old days will surface!) The sun rose around 630am, and Zhi-Shun was soon back to running around town dropping off Shiaw-Guang at the local airport for his flight back to Seattle, and taking Mei-Chi back to Irvine for her must-have beauty sleep! The remaining 5 re-converged at my house for a much needed nap - we were all extremely sleepy by then! The nap was short though, and lots of coffee was involved here! Zhi-Shun started his home-bound drive north around 10am, and the remaining 4 (Chi-Yen, Yung-Way, Chienli and myself) started driving around 11am: waking up Mei-Chi from her beauty sleep, dropping off Chienli at LAX for her flight back to Houston, ate a fine lunch at a seafood restaurant at Redondo Beach King Harbor (Chi-Yen's treat again), and dropping off Mei-Chi at San Pedro for her cruise to Mexico! (For the record, since we almost missed Mei-Chi's boarding time and gave her a real good scare, it's only fair that she is now officially off the hook on the free-lunch offer!) At this point only three die-hard remained: Chi-Yen, Yung-Way and me. Before our eye lids completely gave way, we decided to eat out at a local Chinese restaurant - at Chi-Yen's expense again! (You've got to love this guy!) But there was more to come: Chi-Yen realized during dinner that he'd left his credit card at the Redondo Beach restaurant during lunch! Now what must be done must be done: all three of us, 6 sleepy eyes and all, drove all the way back to Redondo Beach, retrieved the credit card, strolled along the beach while chatting about a possible 2006 gathering, then drove all the way back to my house - the final arrival time was 1am on 10/1/2005! Thank goodness we had a good long nap till 10am that morning! Charged up with another round of coffee, we were up and running again: dropping off Yung-Way at the local airport for his flight back to Tennessee, and, lastly, dropping off Chi-Yen at LAX for his flight back to New Jersey. Overall I must admit I had the most fun among all the attending classmates: I was the only one who had FOUR whole days to relish the good old days with good old friends! True it was sleepy and tiring at times, but it was also a very, very enjoyable experience at all times!

Finally, some lessons learned & thoughts on 2007 all-cast reunion.

Lesson #1: Plan ahead - way ahead! This will minimize no-show due to conflict with standing commitments.

Lesson #2: Plan simple food. Anything to lengthen the chatting time outweighs everything else. Catering, or any zero-preparation-time food, is a good way to go.

Lesson #3: Plan whole-day gathering. The longer the merrier, but preferably all classmates must arrive at least one night BEFORE the main gathering date, and leave at least one night AFTER the main gathering date. Arriving, and in particular leaving, on "D-day" is to be avoided at all cost on every classmate’s own behalf!

Thought #1: Conduct a few local warm-up gathering. This has a magical effect on reminding everyone a simple truth: old friends are probably the only persons in the world with zero demand on us. Another magical effect: old friends are the best mirror of ourselves - thing they choose to do, or not to do, really illuminate things in our own little world. You may want to organize a few in Taiwan prior to the 2007 all-cast reunion! Satisfaction guaranteed!

Thought #2: The most logical place for the 2007 all-cast reunion is somewhere in Taiwan. (Dare we say the basement of NTU Math Department?) This will tend to maximize the attendance. Other locations mentioned were: Hawaii, California, Oregon, New Jersey, but all of these will require foreign travel for the classmates in Taiwan. You may want to have a little survey amongst the classmates in Taiwan, say during the aforementioned local gathering, on this particular point.

Thought #3: The most logical time frame for the 2007 all-cast reunion is in summer 2007. This is because a lot of our classmates probably have kids still at school age.

That's all for now. I really hope you can organize a local gathering in Taiwan soon, take a lot of pictures, and let me count the wrinkles for a change :-)

Keep in touch!

-Kuang