Monday 3 September 2007

Uncle Joe

We had Father's day with my dad yesterday. Our three girls, Fifi, me and he went to yum cha.

He told the girls about Uncle Joe, his mum's brother, who lived with her at Campsie until she moved to Top Ryde. He then moved into the Southern Cross Hotel, a pub on the corner of Princes Highway and Ricketty St in St Peters, and lived there for the rest of his life.

He had been a member of the Communist Party, but it had done him no good at all when he'd returned to China after the communist takeover of 1949. He was treated just like any bourgeouis landowner.

All letters out of China were subject to censorship at the time. My father remembers one of Joe's which started with the words "As a loyal member of the Australian Chinese Communist Party..."

My grandmother had 3 brothers, Joe, George and Rudd (he was the Chinese boxer in Jimmy Sharman's boxing troupe).

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I can see you as a pugilist
put down the keyboard and put on the gloves
stop getting grief for being too aggressive and start getting praise
you just need a good boxing name and a broken nose

Gordon Cheng said...

Smokin' Gordo.

Boxing motto: "Say yer prayers, wabbit!"