Ed in China

Edward, our youngest child, was always a tag-along of his older sister and brother who had rather exiting lives until I retired in 1973. But his time was about to come.

He attended and graduated from Quinnipiac College in 1986. After having attended and graduated from Coronado High School. He, more than his brother or sister was always pretty naturally 'techie.' I observed from his earliest boyhood he was an imaginative Lego Virtuoso. With a temper to match when things didn't work right. 

His first job was with a Defense-NASA contractor  Martin Marietta doing celestial mechanics programming. Their main offices were in Denver. He had lived here in our Old Colorado City home except when he was at College.

But he somehow felt he missed out on all the exotic places I, Patsy, David and Rebecca had lived in - such as on the beach in Hawaii. Though he said his years at Fort Carson and in Colorado where we vacationed were the best early years of his life.  

Somehow he got interested when we got settled on the Westside in Tai Chi  and things oriental. He learned some of his moves from his brother David.

So when a program called 'Princeton in Asia' circulated offers to Americans to join a corresponding college in China he jumped at the chance. He would go for at least a year into a Chinese education institution to help them learn spoken English. Orientals have difficulty speaking vernacular English. He would be in an 'English' department. He did not need to know Chinese.

In preparation he contacted all the Cinese he could find in Colorado Springs, most noteworthy the owners of a Chinese Restaurant on Academuy Boulevard where both the owner and his wife came from the same area in Northern China where he was going. The wife had been a Tennis Table champion in China. He picked up many helpful tips. Later that contact would be important to the Chinese here in Colorado.

 

In preparation, I knew that though China had no 'internet' never-the-less he could do his work better if he took his Toshiba Laptop computer with Windows operating system with him. 

So he made his travel plans to fly from Los Angeles February 1989, first to Tokyo, then fly into Dalian, China where  the Laioning Foreign Trade School would be expecting him. His agreement was to work there from at least March 1989 to March 1990.He would, first in Los Angeles stay overnight at Joan Kretchmer's home. She was my cousin, and he was able to spend one summer during high school (when 16 years old) with her,his Aunt Joan. Ernesto Panigua, her Mexican born husband to which she had been married many years had died. She was a wonderful and practical influence on Ed that teen age summer. He wouldn't pass through LA to China  several times more without visiting her. And both Haning and their boys - David and Justin - got to meet her.

 

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Joan, whose once-promising life and career was dashed - in part by Aunt Arleen's undiguised racism - became the family 'outsider' over the decades. Her mother, Mary Hughes Kretchmer - my fathers younger sister when they lived on the Hughes Ranch in the early 1900s - became, with John Kretchmer her husband successful professional Photography business persons in Omaha, Nebraska. Their Children were Kieth and Joan. Kieth went on to become, after a stint as a junior officer during the Korean War, a very successful stockbroker like his Aunt Arleen had been.

But Joan's mother died of a heart attack in 1951 when Joan was still a high school teenager . Her father, John, never remarried. But in some kind of arrangement between John and Arleen Joan was able to live at Arleen's Colorado Springs house and attend and graduate from Colorado College (she didn't have to board at CC, because Arleen's house at 1225 Wood Avenue was only one block from CC.)

Joan was always naturally bright - too much so for her feminine good. In any case she was recruited by and worked for the CIA for several years - in difficult - for her - 3d world circumstances. (I think Indonesia was one station of hers) Then when in Los Angeles she met, and married Ernesto Paniagua, a Mexican National, with a large extended Mexican family in Mexico. Joan and Ernesto had no children.

Her (and my) Aunt Arleen never forgave Joan for marrying a Mexican. As a result she never gave Joan any further tangible help, In fact in Arleen Hughes will, while she provided long term (21 and more years) Trust accounts for several 'Wilson's on her side of the Family, and for her dead husband Edward Hughes nephew and nieces (me, David Ralph, and Bette) she gave Joan only a few years worth which then terminated)  

At this writing, Joan still lives near Los Angeles, but is barely scraping by on her own. Her brother Kieth, though quite affluent - a millionaire - has done nothing for her circumstances. It fell to Joan who had to tend to their father, John, who lived in Los Angeles his last years

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Tiananmen Square

In any event, Ed arrived in Dalian, China, and checked into the Laioning Foreign Trade School. One of the reasons that China opened such 'trade' schools was that it was opening up to the West, including its economic system. Dalian already had a 'Special Industrial Zone' where manufacturing plants from other countries - the US, UK, Germany were invited to set up inside China, and operate with low wage Chinese workers who, never-the-less, had to begin to learn workable spoken, if not written, English. So that trade school had students, some of whom would become 'teachers' to the peasants who would work in the foreign plants.

In any case, Edward was not required to know Chinese - for he would be in an 'English Department' whose Chinese instructors would already have some degree of fluency in English. It was his native voice, diction, and pronouciation that the school needed.

So he was given a room to live in, and he set about making it as livible as possible, using the power adapters and other devices he had brought with him. He even, on his request, was given a telephone in his room.

He had barely gotton settled and before we had gotten any mail from him when the unprecedented Tiananman Square Uprising happened which became world news.

The more complete  story of Ed's 18 month stay in China - from March 1989 to October 1990 is detailed in another section of this Web site. You can [Click here for Ed in China Stories] to read it from another menu, suffice it to say, Patsy and I were very interested in these events. While Beijing was a long way from Dalian the press conveyed that 'student' uprisings had sprung up in many places in China. Being a Communist dictatorship, I knew anything could happen, and did. d

But the most noteworthy thing that happened - which permitted me to keep him informed from the US press and television reporting, and he detailing exactly what he was seeing and doing was the unprecedented 'China Modem Link' he and I set up over plain dial up AT&T long distance telephone circuits between me in my home office with my ordinary home telephone and he in his room. With 11 hours time difference. It was right under the nose of the Chinese Secret Service who had armed guards at every Fax machine in China. But they never knew what was going on and had they run across the link, all they would have heard was a digital buzz and because we Archived all the messages between us (using arc.exe) to compress them - they would never have been able to read what were saying to each other.

 

If you click here  [Click here for Ed in China Stories]'you will be able to read two sections - the first one exactly how we technically did it, and the second comprised of a large number of HIS messages about what was going on there in china.

 

Here is the first photograph taken on the day Ed and Haning were married in Dalian, China.

 

 

 

 

 

Worked for Sichuan University April 1990 - September 1990

 

Returned to US October 1990, bought House on Kiowa Street.

 

Son David born 6/16/1996

 

Son Justin Born 6/29/1999

 

1990-early 1991 Softronics

1991- 93 Colo Interstate Gas

1993- 2002 MCI

2003-2006 Univ of Colorado, Athletic Dept

2006-2011 XXX Gas Supply Company

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

David Jr worked with me, and separately at Big Sky Telegraph in Montana  1987-89

Lindsey Allen (David's son) born in 1985, known to David 1992

He met lived with Diana Sanchez 1990

She had Liver transplant 1992.

 

Took a technical position in a Unix Internet company in Dallas, TX (dates?). Bought a house, which vandals burned down in ????  Company started collapsing. They moved back to Colorado Springs

Bought house in Old Colorado City area 1994