How and where do I want to spend my last 18 years of my life

Video: Thank you for coming to my birthday party tonight. If you received my RSVP confirmation yesterday, I said I am going to do it differently. I am going to tell you my birthday wishes that can go public and later my personal birthday wishes before cutting the cake after dinner. 謝謝你今晚來參加我的生日派對。如果您昨天收到我的回覆確認，我會說我會採取不同的做法。我將告訴你我可以公開的生日願望，稍後在晚餐後切蛋糕之前我會告訴你我個人的生日願望。

My birthday wish is I want to spend my last 18 years of my life as good as if not better than my first 18 years of my life. 我的生日願望是我想度過我生命的最後 18 年，就像我生命的前 18 年一樣美好.

Why do I say I want to spend at least my last 18 years as good as my first 18 years? 為什麼我說我至少要像前18年一樣度過最後的18年呢?

I was born into a middle class family. My grandfather, father and I were born in HK. My grandfather was chief engineer for Swire Corporation in charge of the Shipyard Operations located at Taikoo HK and my father worked for one of the oldest prestigious law firm in HK, The Hastings.

We live at the waterfront property at Gordon Road across from Victoria Park, HK Island.

We lived in a large 3 stories Manson with 5 maids, my first 18 years since birth were the best of my life till today.

After high school, I have decided to go abroad to study. My father met his client Joe Pluta who studied Hotel and Restaurant Management at the University of Hawai’i thought that could be an excellent major for me to study at UH. After graduating from college, I could take what I learned to come back to HK or go to China to become hotel general manager.

The year I left HK was 1973, the year Bruce Lee died in HK and HK stock market crashed lost 90% of the value, China was so poor, there were no tourism activities. But my father had the foresight and he was right.

My grandfather was born in 1875 and my father in 1900 in HK. Both my grandfather and my father went to Saint Joseph School where the children of the city’s elite go to at the time. Even though both my grandfather and father raised in the former British Colony, they have spoken fluent English and had British bosses, they were never western moon worshippers. Since childhood, they reminded us our Chinese roots and be ready to contribute to our motherland when asked to do so.

Unlike many of my college classmates from HK went to University of Hawai’i tried every means to stay in US, that was never in my plan. I have no admiration for America at all, still no admiration today!

You may asked why I am in US now? Let me put it this way, it happened on my 23rd birthday, 2 weeks prior to my departure from US after obtaining my MBA. I got a call after having too many drinks at my 23rd birthday dinner at Maple Garden Restaurant in Honolulu Hawai’i. My roommate said I must go to the Spats Disco at Hyatt Regency Waikiki because too many beautiful girls, too few guys. Let me stopped at this for now, complete story could be shared at another time.

China’s rise at rocket pace last 10 years made me realized that I could live a good life again with maids, good food, safe environment, no hate crimes, drugs or gun violence in HK or China Greater Bay Area.

Chinese and especially HK born Chinese currently in US are so lucky. They could chose to retire in US high cost cities like SF, NY and Hawai’i comfortably in unsafe environments only if they have at least a monthly pension of $10,000+. What if you only have a monthly pension of $4000, don’t be depressed, be smart, you could still live a equally good or better life than your counterparts with 2.5x higher monthly pension than you by taking advantage of the purchasing power parity to retire in Asia. My preferences are of course HK or China. Some say they will miss their kids and grandchildren. I told my clients if your kids or grandkids any good they don’t need you. Besides modern communication made it so easy to connect. Today, it is wanting to get lost and not to be found the real challenges and not the other way around.

Both my grandfather and father lives passed 92 years old. My 2nd brother is 95. I am making my exit plan. It will be began in November this years. If I am somehow stuck here, the last thing I want is get killed by stray bullets or by drugs addicts in US. I am also got tired of the hate speech by US politicians against Chinese and Chinese Americans hiding behind fake homeland security everyday. No place is safe in America especially for Asians and Chinese Americans. If you have doubts, still remembered how Vincent Chin got clubbed to death on 6/19/82 by AngloSaxon father/son and got off free, no jail time by paying $2000 fines and that how much a Chinese life worth in America. If you are too young, remembered SARS in 2003 when Chinese got blamed just like Covid19 in 2019. In fact Chinese hate never gone away since passing of the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act.

I will end by saying I am more than just wanting to spend my last 18 years equal to my first 18 years outside of America. Who wants to spend your remaining years of your life in a country with a death wish on Chinese American, will you? President Obama who was born and raised in Hawai’i once said, US cannot allow Chinese to live a good life in China like the Americans. He initiated the pivot to Asia to contain China on 2012. And every President after him are doing the same, wanting to send Chinese back to the stone age!

At this time I would like to invite Jimmy Mak who is an award winning singer in the SF Bay Area to sing 2 songs, I am Chinese and Happy Birthday.

我出生在一個中產階級家庭。我的祖父、父親和我都出生在香港。我的祖父是太古集團的總工程師，負責位於香港太古的船廠業務，而我的父親則在香港其中最古老的著名律師事務所之一黑斯廷斯工作。

我們住在香港島維多利亞公園對面戈登道的海濱物業。

我們住在曼森一棟三層樓的大房子裡，有 5 個女傭，我出生後的前 18 年是我人生中最美好的時光。

高中畢業後，我決定出國留學。我父親遇到了他的客戶 Joe Pluta，他在夏威夷大學酒店和餐廳管理學院畢業. 爸爸認為這對我來說是夏威夷大學學習的一個很好的專業。大學畢業後，我可以帶著所學回到香港或去中國當飯店總經理。

我離開香港的那年是1973年，那一年李小龍在香港去世，香港股市崩盤損失了90%的價值，中國太窮了，沒有旅遊活動。但我父親有先見之明，他是對的。

我的祖父於 1875 年出生於香港，父親於 1900 年出生於香港。我的祖父和父親都是就讀於聖約瑟學校，當時香港精英的孩子就讀於該學校。儘管我的祖父和父親都在前英國殖民地長大，他們都能說流利的英語，並且有英國老闆，但他們從來都不是西方的月亮崇拜者。從我們是小孩時起，他們就提醒我們的中國根，並要我們準備好為祖國做出貢獻。

不像我的許多香港大學同學在夏威夷大學想盡一切辦法留在美國，這從來不在我的計劃中。我對美國一點也不欽佩，今天仍然如是!

你可能會問我為什麼我現在在美國？讓我這樣說吧，這件事發生在我 23 歲生日那天，也就是我拿到 MBA 學位後準備要離開美國的兩週前。我在夏威夷檀香山楓林閣餐廳和朋友慶祝23 歲生日晚餐上喝了太多酒回家睡覺，在半睡半醒之間接到了電話。我的室友說我必須去威基基凱悅酒店的 Spats Disco，因為漂亮的女孩太多，男生太少。讓我暫時停在這裡，完整的故事可以在其他時間分享。

中國過去十年的快速崛起讓我意識到，在香港或中國大灣區，我可以再次過上美好的生活，有女傭、美味的食物、安全的環境、沒有仇恨犯罪、毒品或槍支暴力。

目前在美國的中國人，尤其是香港出生的中國人是如此幸運。只有每月退休金至少達到 10,000 美元以上，他們才可以選擇在舊金山、紐約和夏威夷等美國高成本城市，在不安全的環境中舒適地退休。如果你每月只有4000美元的退休金怎麼辦，別沮喪，聰明一點，你仍然可以透過購買力平價的優勢，過著與每月退休金比你高2.5倍的同齡人一樣好或更好的生活在亞洲退休。我的偏好當然是香港或中國。有人說他們會想念自己的孩子和孫子。我告訴我的客戶，如果你的孩子或孫子有任何好處，他們就不需要你。此外，現代通訊使聯繫變得如此容易。如今，人們想不被找到是真正的挑戰.

我的祖父和父親都活到92歲後，我的二哥已經95歲了。逃離美國的第一步將於今年11月開始實施。如果我退休後被困在美國，我家人最不想看到的是我被流彈或被美國的吸毒者殺死。我也厭倦了美國政客每天針對躲在假國土安全背後的華人和華裔美國人的仇恨言論。美國沒有一個地方是安全的，尤其是對亞洲人和華裔美國人來說。如果你有疑問，還記得陳果仁是如何在82 年6 月19 日美國被白人父子棍打致死的，並通過支付2000 美元的罰款而獲得自由，沒有坐牢，那就是美國華人的生命在美國值多少錢：美元二千元吧! 如果你還太年輕，還記得2003年的严重急性呼吸系统综合征（俗称非典），當時中國人就像2019年的Covid19一樣受到指責, 說美國華人都是病毒!

最後我要說的是，我想在美國之外度過我的最後 18 年的重點是誰願意在一個國家對華裔美國人那樣仇恨度過餘生呢？在夏威夷出生長大的歐巴馬總統曾說過，美國不能讓中國人像美國人一樣在中國過上好日子。他在2012年發起了轉向亞洲遏制中國的戰略。

現在我想邀請舊金山灣區的得獎歌手 Jimmy Mak來演唱《我是中國人》和《生日快樂》兩首歌