| Here is the Civil Engineer’s joke: After the successful moon landing in 1969, the Aerospace Industry faced a crisis of all the big jobs were gone. Department of Defense (DOD) still had some budget to keep one huge company like Boeing Company or McDonnell Douglas (McDD) going. Boeing was based in Seattle and McDD in LA area. Later in earlier 70’s, DOD awarded a big project to McDD. Boeing immediately started one door hired younger engineer and other door fired older engineer policy. The simple fact is that a younger engineer is cheaper and maybe even better. They had the most up to date education. There were a lot of National Taiwan University (NTU) Civil Engineers (CE’s) who were in middle age became the victim of being too technical and had no chance to be promoted. They were laid off. Some lucky one got hired by McDD and had to move to LA from Seattle. So the real estate market in Seattle were flooded with those laid off candidate’s homes. The simple economic principle of supply and demand would easily tell you that the housing price dropped and it took a long time to sell. One ‘61 NTU CE alumnus Old Chang could not get a job, but he decided to move out the depressing Seattle to raise his family. He did not like to pay a real estate broker to sell his home and charged him the commission from his hard earned money. He consulted with the broker John who sold him the property they lived. John advised him to be a FSBO (For Sell by Owner) to save the listing and selling commissions. John even helped him to set a sale price and showed him how to hold a Sunday afternoon open house. Chang held an open house every Sunday afternoon 1-5p. A few months were gone by, the prospective buyers got less and less. He felt very depressed and still held his open house on Sunday. He felt very tired, so he sat down on his front porch and looked depressed. Around 5p, a prospective buyer Old Lee came in and asked:”Why you looked so depressed in holding the open house?” Chang told Lee:”I had made three mistakes in my life time”. Lee asked: “What are your mistakes? I would like to know.” Chang said:”My first mistake was that I was born in a wrong family.” If my parent were rich and/or powerful, I would be financially independent and never had to worry about my job/money. But that was really not my mistake, one night the power was out and my parent had nothing to do for fun. They went to bed quite early and made love. I was born about 10 months later. Let me consider that it was my mistake to be born in an average family.” Lee asked him for the second mistake. Chang said:”My second mistake was I chose the CE as my profession.” In 60’s, the CE was the top choice of all engineering disciplines, I could pick EE, ME or Chem. E as my profession with my college entrance exam score. Those days, a CE sophomore could pass the exam of a Professional Engineer (P.E.) candidate and then past the P.E. exam when he/she finished the course of junior. He could be hired by a licensed contractor who did not have the P.E. license He did not have to do any thing to get pay pretty good, because the contractors did not have much education in the CE to get a P.E. license. Especially the ontractor had to pay him in US to go home when the government agent came to audit his license. They had to pay his round trip air fare and per diem for him to be in Taiwan for the audit. No other engineering branch had this kind of opportunity to make a good income. So the CE became the third choice in the college entrance exam. No. 1 was always the M.D. Physics was the second choice due to Profs. Lee and Yang won their Nobel price in the Physics. In a few years, the Taiwan government found out that the P.E. who signed the design drawing was in the US, they revoked both the CE and contractor licenses. The good old days were gone. The high tech started to be a much better choice in 80’s. Three of his high school classmates, Wang, Chen and Lin, who took the EE, ME and Chem. E as their major. They all jointed the high tech field. In a few years, they opened their own firm and were all doing very well. Too bad he picked the CE in early 60’s and 20 years later he lost his job and about to lose his home to the bank. Since after he was laid off, he had no high income to pay for the high mortgage. He said the second mistake is definitely his, because he could have picked the EE, ME or Chem. E as his major and he would be in the high tech field. He would not have to sell his home and found no jobs. Lee was so curious about his third mistake and asked Chang:”What was your third mistake? Please tell me now.” Chang said “My third mistake was that I married to a wrong girl”. Lee was puzzled by his answer and said:”Why was your wife had anything to do with your depression and jobless?” Chang said: “If I married a girl from the rich and/or powerful family, I would be laying the other CE’s off. I could buy an engineering firm and be the boss.“ CE’s: Please don’t tell your wife that the third mistake you made. They would kill me if they found out that I told you this joke (Laugh!). Sincerely, T.Y. Chuang (莊添裕), October, 2009 |
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| T.Y.’s US Journey (Chapters 1, 2, 3, 4) and A Civil Engineer Joke received from Tien-yuh Chuang (莊添裕) and revised on 2010-07-27 |
| Taiwan Island Village: 台灣島村: Hsinchu (Xinzhu) High School Reminisced 憶竹中 忆竹中 |
| Tel: 1-925-376-7700 Fax: 1-925-376-9632 E-mail: tychuang1@gmail.com |
| Owner TY Real Estate Complete Services 天一完整實業服務 P.O. Box 6138 Moraga, CA 94570-6138 |
| T.Y.’s US Journey: Chapter One Journey from Taipei, Taiwan, ROC to the International House at Cal Berkeley I think that I left Taiwan on September 4, 1965, because my Republic of China (Taiwan) passport had a stamp mark of 9/4/65 from Tokyo Airport (TKO). We went to Tokyo via Cathay Airways. We stopped over Tokyo for a few hours. Cathay gave us a hotel room to rest and wait for the connecting flight. I bought a Canon camera in Tokyo. That camera was broken and stolen by Winston, a Cal Chemistry undergraduate student from Hong |
| Kong who climbed thru my window at 2158 Stuart St., Berkeley, CA 94705, my third home in US. My landlady caught him and let him go, because he is a Chinese. She trussed Chinese even the one broke in. Winston told my landlady that he left some thing in my room and needed it right the way. She told me the next day. He also stole a blank check from me. He forged my signature for $200 and cashed in the Central Bank, Berkeley. Later I found out and sued the bank in Berkeley municipal court lost and appealed to the Alameda superior court in Oakland to get my $200 plus the court fee. I won the suit since the defendant did not appear. This was first and only litigation in my life time so far. Winston lost about $200 to me in the Mahjong game. He knew where I put the blank checks and he also knew how I signed, because I gave him my check when I lost to him. We left TKO late in the night of 9/4/65 and flew over the Pacific Ocean via a Boeing 707 of Pan am Airlines. We stopped over Anchorage, AL for refueling. The Boeing 707 finally arrived at San Francisco (SF) International Airport (SFO) in the evening of 9/4/65, the Saturday. Y.K. Tang (my Civil Engineering classmate at National Taiwan University (NTU)) and I were on the same flight, I checked my Cal’s employment form, and it stated I entered US on 9/4/65. I am sure the 4th of September, 1965 is my US anniversary, since my passport had both stamp marks from TKO and SFO showed I entered there on September 4, 1965. It has been forty-four years, my memory did not last that long. This is why I have to verify the date with my document. It is such important date to me. Raymond Pao, Y.K.'s high school classmate who had no car and went to SFO via AC Transit and Greyhound. He intended to take us back by Greyhound to SF downtown from SFO; we would come back to Berkeley via AC Transit. Luckily we met Y.K.'s old neighbors in Taipei at SFO. They missed the person they were supposed to pick up at SFO. It was a miscommunication. They took three of us to SF China town and treated us a dinner at Kim Han Restaurant on Jackson St., SF. First time I was served with soup first. In Taiwan the soup was the last dish to be served in a restaurant. Later we went to their gift shop in China town. They served us a can of peaches. Finally we came back to Raymond's rooming house at Highland Place and Hearst Avenue via Y.K.'s neighbor's car. His neighbor was a ROC (Republic of China/Taiwan) Navy Officer. He came to Monterrey Navy Language School to learn English. He managed to get a permanent visa to stay in US and he married to a Chinese girl. They bought a gift shop on Grand Avenue, SF and lived upstairs. He was a Navy Officer and changed to a merchant. What a change in his career. I came to US with $300 in my pocket and two suit cases of clothes. I had an I-20A to Cal Berkeley and a letter from the Division of Applied Mechanics offering me a Teaching Assistant (TA) position with stipend of $2,750 for the academic year 65-66. Today I still couldn't understand why the Division offered me a TA not Research Assistant (RA). I hardly spoke any English and had to teach. It scared me heck a lot. The division had a lot of graduate students from Taiwan. They must know our spoken English was very poor. The only factor for TA is better than RA: TA is resident tuition free and RA is not. I checked in to International House (I-House) in the end of September. I stayed at Raymond's rooming house for over three weeks. He had to go to his Lab in the late morning. So he left me at the Student Union. I went to the upstairs TV room to ease my jet lag. I ate hamburger every lunch. I was sick of hamburger for many many years. It was the only food I dared to try. Now I loved the juicy rare hamburger at the Fuddruckers in Walnut Creek, Concord and Dublin, CA. What an irony it is! I also loved apple pie. How Americanized one could be? Since Americans always say “You are as American as apple pie and hamburger”. After I checked into the I-House, I found out my room mate was from Austria. We hardly met nor spoke to each other, because he slept day time. I had an 8 to 5 schedule. German and Chinese just did not communicate at all. I-House had students from all over the world, therefore they served international foods. Some country’s food was too strange for me. To avoid hungry, I ate a lot of bread and drank coffee, tea and milk. Once I saw the buttermilk, milk with butter had to be good. I tried one glass. I thought I got a bad one. After three tries, I knew that was the way it should be. I said “How are you or how do you do?” to greet people. I also said “Yes” not “Yea”. When other people said “How are you doing or how is going?” to me, I replied: “I am doing my home work or I am going to my office.” The old style of English I learned in college was not working at all. It was my first cultural shock. After several weeks or months, I finally said “Yea” instead of “Yes”. Rev. 7/27/10 |
| T.Y.’s US Journey: Chapter Two The best four years of my life were at Cal Berkeley It was forty five years ago, I came to San Francisco International Airport (SFO) on September 4, 1965 with two suitcases of cloth and $300 cash in my wallet. “Time runs like arrow and sun-moon turns like the spindle” is a very descriptive and true statement in Chinese old saying. It was just like last night when I stepped out the SFO in that evening. Forty five years disappeared just like a few seconds. We come to the age of the last segment of the four events of life: birth, old, sick and death. Every time I talked to my old friends, I was told someone we knew was gone. I remembered all my friends who stopped by San Francisco Bay Area (SFBA). They came to US to study and I picked them up at SFO. Later some one went home to find a girl to marry. I went to SFO to pick her up too. We started job hunting, marriage, having kids, kid's wedding and so on. All are happy events. Now I heard the sad news about some friends died and felt lucky that I am still alive. After 911 incidents, no one could be sure that you won't be hit by an air plane. It was thought to be nearly impossible. Well, life goes on and the earth is always spinning. I have to be positive about my life, since it is not perfect. I e-mailed a lot with Dr. Wen-Fan Lin who is my e-pal. I loved the late night writing, since my mind is clear and no phone call except bad news from Taiwan. The writing improves my English. My white friends told me that I spoke pretty good English and so is my writing skill. I owed them to my English major daughter, Angie, an English/Journalism professor. She worked for me one summer of 90’s while she was in Stanford University pursuing her B.A. and M.A. in English. She corrected my English (both writing and speaking) daily. Now she is teaching at the American University at DC. I am very proud of her. I was pretty good in Chinese too. I got 84/100 score in Chinese for our college entrance exam. My English was not good until my daughter; a Stanford English major tutored me. Once Dr. Wen-Fan Lin asked me: “what the heck were you doing around 3:00 am while everyone was sleeping and you were still writing jokes?’ My answer was that I just couldn't help it, since I enjoyed so much. Look! It is 2:40 am now; I am still punching my key board. One of primary school classmate Dr. Long-Chi Chang (a friend of 62 years) once asked me: “If you started over to pick major, what it would be?” My answer is Chinese Literature. I used to write very well in Chinese while I was in high school. I had both brains in Math and Literature. I was very proficient in both. I loved both too. Right now my both brains were replaced by money and pretty girls. (Ha! Ha!) I enjoyed teaching a lot. I worked as a tutor in college for my meals. I taught in Cal Berkeley. There was one graduate level course was the toughest one in the Division of Applied Mechanics (DAM), i.e., the Intermediate Dynamics (ID). I remembered that our National Taiwan University (NTU) professor wouldn't dare to touch any thing moves by telling us that Civil Engineers (CE's) don't need to learn dynamics. My first semester at Cal, I took the ID and Linear Oscillations (Mechanical Vibration), and Linear Algebra. It was my life time nightmare to learn two toughest courses in DAM. If one flunked the ID, one would have to leave the DAM of Cal. That semester I studied so hard like never before. In that tough semester, I only went to movies a few times. I studied night and day. The hard working got rewarded; I got three "A". I even became the teaching assistant (TA) for ID and I had to carry one hour class per week. My students complimented me that I was better than the professor. It was the good old days. The first best time in my 69 years life was those four years in Cal. I had no kids, no property, no girl friend and no regular payments, but I had a future/dream. The last two years in Cal, I was working for my Ph.D. (Poor and Hungry Dad) dissertation. I finished it in three months, but my late adviser Prof. Paul M. Naghdi would not let me graduate until he had no funding to support me. My full time job was reading fighting novel and playing Mahjong. Rev. 7/27/10 |
| T.Y.’s US Journey: Chapter Three The worst year of my life was to look for a job in 1969-1970 After my best time in Cal Berkeley from fall ’65 to spring ’69, I graduated from Cal and became unemployed. It was the era after successful moon landing, federal government started to cut research funding. Aerospace era was over. There was no big industry in US. Aerospace giant like Boeing Company started a big layoff program. Engineers in Civil and Mechanical were over supplied, so the new graduates had a very little chance to find a job. I was playing Mahjong to make a living. I sent my resume to all the companies in College Placement from A to Z. I got only one job interview from Esso Research and Production Corporation, Houston, TX. Houston was famous of double 95, i. e., 95 degree Fahrenheit temperature and 95 percent humidity. I went out from a hotel in the morning; I found out that I needed a set of wipers on my eyeglasses like a car. The moisture was all over my eyeglasses. I could not see anything. I had a rare 18 oz T-bone steak about an inch thick for my dinner on the day of arrival. The host was very surprised to see me order rare not well done like most Chinese. This is the beginning of me turning to be a “Banana”, yellow outside and white inside. It started from my tummy. Texas was the country of cowboys and cows, so the steak was pretty cheap and good. During the dinner, the host from Esso asked me about Finite Element Method of Structural Analysis, it was a method analyzing a structure using main frame computer, and Cal Civil Engineering (CE) Department was ranked No.1 in US. He automatically assumed I must be very good in computer, since I graduated from Cal Berkeley. I tried to avoid answering his question, since I didn’t know anything about computer. He must sense it, so I did not get the job. I jumped over the computer training by flying over the Pacific Ocean. In our junior year of CE Department of National Taiwan University (NTU), we had a class titled “Electrical Engineering (EE)”. The instructor Jiang Tai-Chi was a very tough one. He offered “Introduction of Computer” in our senior year. There was only one from our class CE64 took his course. We all talked him out of it. Jiang was not physiologically sound. I had six roommates (majoring EE) in NTU Dormitory No. 6. They told me a lot about him. His final had 25 true or false questions. The answer sheet had four blank rows with a heading of “True” “False” “True” ” False” across. The first row was the question number. I was totally surprised to see there were four answers to a true or false question. It should have only two, i.e., true or false. Your neighbor in the exam room did not have the same question like yours. He reshuffled the order of questions and made it impossible for cheaters. There too much cheating in NTU CE Department. I totally agreed with him on this count. We all had the same questions except the order. He then explained the four rows were for us to mark “true” on the first row or “false” on the second row with an ”X”. The first two rows were for practicing, he would not grade them. We should finish the entire questions by marking the first or second row on the first trial. He then told us to review one more time and then marked on the third or fourth row. We could not change the answer once it was marked. Any wrong answer would receive a negative score of four points. The final score could range from -100 to +100. I remembered someone had a pretty high negative, since he answered every question and did not do well. You could skip to answer any question. You would not get any score; nor would you lose any score. I think he was a weirdo. Now you know why we did not take his course again from him, the “Introduction of Computer”. The computer was IBM 1620. It was the tube age, so it took a pretty good size room to install it. Air conditioning was running all day and night to keep the right temperature. In ’65, when I arrived at US after one year military service, US already had all undergraduate trained with computer class. I went into the Applied Mechanics Division of Mechanical Engineering Department (AMD) of Cal Berkeley. It was an applied math field, we did not use computer at all. I never had any formal training of computer in my life. I had never punched a single IBM card for the computer in Cal. All CE students spent a lot of time in Computer Center Key Punch Room. One of my NTU CE’64 classmates even met his wife there. While I was at Cal, I got a summer job in John A. Blume & Associates in San Francisco. It was an earthquake engineering firm, with my CE and AM back ground I became pretty good in my job. I went back to work there during quarter breaks. My supervisor was Ed Keith; he was a Cal CE graduate. He had a Master of Science (MS) degree from the Structural Mechanics and Structural Engineering Division of CE Department. He has a very strong back ground in Mechanics. He went out to open his own firm with his associate Bob Feibusch, the company was Engineering Data System, Inc. In December of ’69, I went to Ed to get a job. I finally gave up my job hunting dream. They hired me as the second employee. We got the job from Bechtel Power Corporation to perform the seismic analysis of nuclear power plant piping system. I worked closely with Ed on the job from General Electric (GE) Company, San Jose Division. I performed the classical analysis of nuclear power plant equipment, e.g., High Pressure Core Injection Pumps. It seemed to relate to what I have learned in the DAM at Cal. There were quiet a few DAM Chinese graduate students joined the company thru my introduction. I became workaholic. I did not realize that it was a job of production. I dug into the classical mechanics and performed research. I came up some thing which Ed did not like, but I was correct and refused to give in. So Ed fired me in June, ‘70 and told me that I attacked his fundamental. I just did not how to yield to the real business world practice. Rev. 7/21/10 |
| T.Y. Chuang, Ph.D., P.E., Notary Public Real Estate/Loan Broker Mobile Notary, Signing Agent Department of Real Estate Identification Number: 00941710 Secretary of State Commission Number: 1858549 Civil Engineer License Number: C 24627 |
| 各位朋友： 我是莊添裕 (T.Y. Chuang). 二十三年前我從土木工程 界的核能電廠地震研究轉 行進入房地產界。房地產 的起落不定，康郡的情況 隨異。如果您購置房地產 及貸款經由我為您服務， 我會給與合理的優待。 歡迎來電咨詢，我會誠心 誠意的協助您，不懂得也 會設法找到答。我也可以 幫忙諸位購車 (BMW, Mini Cooper, Buick, Pontiac, GMC and other dealers) 。 隨信附上我的服務項目及 California High Schools Survey 供諸位參考和2010 年的陰陽月曆。謝謝！ Attachments (Calendar is not attached, it will be mailed to you with the current year calendar) T.Y. Chuang (莊添裕)上 November 1, 2008 |
| T.Y. Chuang's 2008-11-01 Letter to Clients and Potential Clients |
| 各位朋友： 我是庄添裕 (TY Chuang). 二十三年前我从土木工程 界的核能电厂地震研究转 行进入房地产界。房地产 的起落不定，康郡的情况 随异。如果您购置房地产 及贷款经由我为您服务， 我会给与合理的优待。 欢迎来电咨询，我会诚心 诚意的协助您，不懂得也 会设法找到答。我也可以 帮忙诸位购车(BMW, Mini Cooper, Buick, Pontiac, GMC and other dealers) 。 随信附上我的服务项目及 California High Schools Survey 供诸位参考和2010 年的阴阳月历。谢谢！ Attachments (Calendar is not attached, it will be mailed to you with the current year calendar) T.Y. Chuang (庄添裕) 上 November 1, 2008 |
| T.Y.’s US Journey: Chapter Four The second best years of my life was married to Ling-shin Chen starting July 26, ’70 After I worked in Engineering Data System, Inc (EDS) for six months from December ’69 to June ’70. I was fired by my boss Ed Keith at EDS in June ’70. Luckily, a Bechtel Power Corporation (BPC) Engineer Isa Yin recognized my contribution and introduced me to his supervisor Fred Vinson. Fred hired me right the way. I told Bechtel that I would like to take a break of three months and come back to work in September, ’70. They agreed, so I came back to Taiwan right the way to meet my family. Taiwan economy started to take off; all my siblings were doing very well. I felt I jumped into wrong ship. I still went back to my job at BPC at San Francisco (SF), since I had been offered a pretty good job and made commitment to come back. I always try to keep my word. I was told that I was a man of words. It was a very nice compliment anyone could have. I felt honored. In my job hunting period for six months, June ’69 to December ‘70, I played a lot Mahjong games with my playmates. Once I played for 76 hours without sleeping, there were four opponents played with me, three playing and one sleeping. I was young and naïve. After 76 hours and winning several hundred dollars, I went to sleep for 28 hours. I missed a whole day. I quit playing Mahjong game in early ’70. I lost interest to play a game which I was so proficient and found no challegence. One important factor makes me quit the game was someone cheated in a game among friends. When I announced I was not playing any more, no one believed I was serious. They all thought I would come back to the Mahjong table soon. They were wrong. I quit it for good. One player lost to me a lot money to me met me in a restaurant after two years. He asked “Would you play again? I got a couple good player from Taiwan, They would like to play with you, the best player I knew”. I flatly rejected the invitation. During the first half of ’70, I communicated with Ling-shin Chen. She was the daughter of the colleague of my second brother-in-law’s brother. She was a junior at National Taiwan University (NTU) and majored in Sociology. Both families got very excited about my return to Taiwan. They set up a traditional marriage interview. Ling-shin was not ready to have a deeper relationship. She said she was too young to get serious in marriage. She was pushed into the interview. She dressed up very causal, but it impressed me of her truthfulness. Our first date was to visit the National Palace Museum near Taipei. I met her in Taipei Railroad Station, since she lived in Chung-Li and took train to Taipei. I hired a taxi to the museum. After the visit, she insisted to take bus to save money. She was a down to earth girl. We dated every day and I fell in love with her. I proposed to her very soon. With my persistence, she finally married me on July 26, 1970. We went to the honey moon by touring the island and visiting relatives. I came back to report to Bechtel in SF. She came to visit me in December of ’70 after her immigration status was approved. We had a second honey moon in US. It was the second best time of my life. The first was a single life in Cal Berkeley. It was not as good as a married man. I reported to Bechtel and started my engineer career. We lived at 3302 Yosemite Ave., El Cerrito, CA 94530. One of her friend from Taiwan asked her: “Did you live in Yosemite National Park”? I wished we were, it is my No. 1 dream place to live. I went there every season and took picture. The Half Dome picture hanging all over my house. I have been all US famous national parks in west, Yellow Stone, Grand Canyon and Yosemite. Among these three national parks, Yosemite is only 4-5 hours away from home. I could have a one day trip.. She went back to Taiwan to finish her B.A. Degree in Sociology at NTU. The separation was very hard for both of us. After her graduation in June, she came back. Our marrying life started in a formal way. We had the third honey moon, how lucky I am. She found a job in an insurance company as a filing clerk. My Bechtel career also started. Please wait for my next chapter. Thanks (謝謝)! Rev. 7/27/10 |