On this 9/11 anniversary, we remember seven Taiwanese-Americans dedicated to their communities, careers, and their families.
This blog aims to share with the Taiwanese American community a little bit about each of the seven Taiwanese Americans and honor their memory, as well as an in-depth editorial about one of the victims from the perspective of a family member.
Yang Der Lee, 63, of New York, NY
Windows on the World | North Tower
Ssu-Hui Wen, 23, of Arlington, TX
Cantor Fitzgerald | North Tower
Hweidar Jian, 42, of New Brunswick, NJ
Cantor Fitzgerald | North Tower
Alexander H. Chiang, 51, of New City, NY
Marsh & McLennan | North Tower
Ming-Hao Liu, 41, of Livingston, NJ
Washington Group International | South Tower
Mandy Chang, 40, of New York, NY
First Commercial Bank | South Tower
Ching Wang, 59, of New York, NY
First Commercial Bank | South Tower
DEDICATED TO THE MEMORY OF ALL THOSE WHO LOST THEIR LIVES ON
SEPTEMBER 11, 2001
Yang-Der Lee, 63 (李洋德)
New York, NY
Family, charity, and temple. Each morning, the 63-year-old took the subway from his Queens home to Lower Manhattan, earning $10 per hour as a delivery clerk at the World Trade Center’s Windows on the World, a famous restaurant atop the North Tower. His salary was used for charities with the Tzu Chi Foundation and the Buddhist temple he worshiped at. His immigrant children, who went on to have successful careers, cajoled their father to retire, but Mr. Lee opted to wait until he was 65.
On September 11th, Yang Der Lee was among the 73 restaurant staff from Windows on the World that perished in the attacks. Among the victims included immigrants from dozens of countries. The surviving employees in 2006, opened the restaurant Colors in Manhattan, serving as a tribute to the immigrants that died on September 11, 2001.
For more information about the Tzu Chi Foundation, visit https://tzuchi.us/offices/ny
For more information about the Restaurant Opportunities Centers United, visit https://rocunited.org/
Source: The New York Times
Ssu-Hui Wen, 23 (聞思慧)
Arlington, TX
Growing up in Taiwan, Ssu-Hui “Vanessa” Wen and her older sister Sarah were taught to be self-sufficient. Much of their childhood was spent traveling with their parents, who ran an import-export business. At 18, Vanessa immigrated to the U.S. with Sarah to begin college at the University of Texas at Arlington. After graduation, Vanessa moved to New York for a job opportunity while Sarah remained in Texas. For the Taiwanese immigrant living the American dream, the World Trade Center was the place to be.
A computer programmer for Cantor Fitzgerald, all 658 employees in the office at the time of the first plane crash did not survive. Vanessa’s remains were recovered in December and brought back to Dallas.
For more information about the Cantor Fitzgerald Relief Fund, visit https://www.cantorrelief.org/.
Source(s): The New York Times, The Oregionian
Hweidar Jian, 42 (簡慧達)
New Brunswick, NJ
Born in Taoyuan, Hweidar “Dar” Jian immigrated to the United States in 1983 to earn a master’s degree at SUNY Buffalo. After graduating, he and his wife Ju-Hsiu (known as Connie) became U.S. citizens and settled in New Jersey with their sons William and Kevin. In the summer of 2001, the family vacationed in Taiwan, and the couple discussed their future as a family on the night of September 10.
Dar worked as a software designer for Cantor Fitzgerald. His remains were returned to Taiwan and interred in a mausoleum near one of the places he visited during his final trip.
For more information about the Cantor Fitzgerald Relief Fund, visit https://www.cantorrelief.org/.
Source: Grand Rapids Press
Alexander H. Chiang, 51
New City, NY
As teenagers, Grace and John Chiang never slept in on weekends. Every Saturday, Mr. Chiang, his wife Sunny, and the entire family traveled from their upstate New York home to meet with other members of the Chinese-speaking non-denominational church he founded in Franklin Park, NJ. His wife recalled her husband as a very faithful person, and wished to retire and devote more time to the church.
Alexander Chiang worked as a computer specialist for Marsh & McLennan in the North Tower. The firm lost 295 employees and 63 contractors in the attacks.
For more information about the Church in Franklin, visit: https://www.churchinfranklin.org/index.html
Source(s): The New York Times, Syracuse Post Standard
Ming-Hao Liu, 41 (劉明灝)
Livingston, NJ
A teacher at heart. The former Taiwanese national rugby champion spent his weekends as the principal at the Livingston Chinese School in New Jersey. During a trip back to Taiwan, he left behind gifts intended for his two sons and stuffed 50 textbooks into his suitcase. If it weren’t for his engineering job at the World Trade Center, Mr. Liu would probably be content at planning parties and organizing trips for pupils and parents alike.
On one trip to Tennessee, he let students get up before the bus and answer these questions in Mandarin: “Why do you love your parents? What do you want to do for your parents?” recalled his wife, Jiun-Min.
Mr. Liu worked for Washington Group International in the South Tower, which lost thirteen employees in the attacks. He left behind his wife and two children, Allen and Austin.
For more information about the Livingston Chinese School, visit http://livingstonchineseschool.org/lcs2/
Source(s): Chicago Tribune, The New York Times
Mandy Chang, 40
New York, NY
Wanderlust fulfilled. The Taiwanese immigrant’s true passion was her travels around the world. Egypt, Russia, Turkey, and Latin America. She’s been to them all. Mandy wanted to visit every continent by the time she hit 50 and only had Australia and Antarctica left.
Mandy worked as a manager for First Commercial Bank (第一銀行) in the South Tower. Located on the 78th floor, the office lost three employees that morning, including Ching Wang, 59, of New York, NY, another native of Taiwan. Mandy left behind her mother, Feng-yu.
Source(s): The New York Times, Taiwan News
On September 11th, 2001, Samuel Chiang’s eldest brother Alexander, an immigrant from Taiwan and father of two, perished in the North Tower of the World Trade Center. On the eve of his funeral, Samuel wrote an editorial for the World Journal reflecting their relationship as a family. With permission, former TAP-DC board member David Chang has translated the article for our English-speaking audience. Here is their story.
Before the first plane crashed into the World Trade Center, I called my brother to surprise him (I had planned to provide him with a long-awaited gift), but no one answered. It was intended to be a surprise, so I didn’t leave a message for him. Not long after, I learned a plane crashed into the World Trade Center. I was so frightened that my limbs trembled, and I frantically attempted to contact him. Because he usually arrives at work before 8:30, and his office is located on the 95th floor of the North Tower, he never called me to report on his safety. If something happened, he would contact me. Then the second plane hit, and my company sent all employees home. Since my colleagues knew I was searching for my brother, I could not travel downtown. As they guided me across the Queensboro Bridge, the World Trade Center had disappeared, and I could no longer control my tears. My heart sank. It took me six hours to return home, and I was devastated because I knew I couldn’t bear the fact that I had lost my older brother.
There’s an eight-year age gap between us, he was the eldest sibling in my family, and I was the youngest. Between us, I have a brother and a sister. Growing up, I don’t know where my father was inspired to name us. He called him “Huai,” and he named me “Han’, reflecting the rivers in China. When I was in the second grade, he left home to study at the Affiliated Senior High School in Taipei (師大附中), but I admired him as a child; because he was eloquent, handsome, intelligent, and considerate. He also had leadership qualities, and the praise from relatives and friends always centered on him. Despite being mischievous, he always took care of his younger siblings. My sister Ping once told me when she was in elementary school, my brother would help deliver her bento lunch. Passing by the playground one day, he accidentally dropped her bento box, and food spilled on the ground. Quickly putting her food back into the steamer, my sister noticed her bento was different than usual and saw her brother eating food with a few grains of sand in the corner of his mouth and said nonchalantly, “you changed to a bigger bento today, are you full?”
Another moment was when other children bullied my second eldest brother “Hao” outside, and Huai rushed out to protect him. Hao’s forehead was broken, and blood flowed out. He foolishly threw himself into the well at the alley’s entrance to reassure Hao. He was scolded when he returned home, but when his father found out afterward, he was beaten up according to old family rules. In my young heart, he has always been like a hero.
When he turned eighteen, Alexander didn’t score well on the college entrance exam, so he returned home to prepare for the re-examination. We lived in the same room. It’s reasonable to say at that age; he was too busy studying, playing, and making friends all day long. How could he dump me? We are half-grown children, but we established a deep relationship that year. In fact, our two personalities are entirely different, but we have a perfect understanding and formed the best partner.
My mother died when I was fourteen, and I will never forget the day she passed… I was in class at school. The Chinese teacher on the podium explained that “lost mother” means a child who lost his mother. At this moment, I saw him walking into my classroom with tears in his eyes. Taking me home, I had a premonition in my heart that my mother had already passed away. I rushed out of the classroom immediately, and he came and hugged me tightly, I vented the grief and grievance in my heart with my fists, and he let my fists fall on him like raindrops; he kept telling me that he would help Dad take good care of us. Looking back now, he was only a junior in college, and he never broke his promise. He was like a bright light throughout my growing up as a teenager, and he became my role model in the persistence of faith and in dealing with others.
My brother immigrated to the United States in 1980, and I followed five years later. From the first day I came to the United States, he called me almost every day. We now have our own families, but the joy of brotherly conversation is still like the feeling when we lived in the same cabin. We thought about starting a business together, but that has not come to fruition. A recession hit in the early 1990s, and we were laid off. Then we decided to open a store, but with no business experience, we couldn’t figure it out. Two highly educated brothers are unable to perform. I often asked him why our fate ended up like this, but he always comforted me with confidence, whether worried or not… at least he never showed it in his eyebrows. We worked fourteen hours a day, and never cared about the distribution of time or the workload, and we hoped we could share more, especially since this was a cash-income business. Although our income was far less than that of our previous jobs, the workload was pretty heavy, but we never argued as we worked together day and night. He instilled confidence to make me believe we would escape this haze. We later returned to our professional lives, but it was a period we cherished amid the challenging economic times. This comforted our father in Taiwan and made friends around us envy this deep brotherhood.
Our lives have improved over the years, and his two children blossomed academically and professionally. On September 10th, my brother told me on the phone he would be able to fulfill his lifelong mission – to quit his job and dedicate his life to God and the church. Those words were still in my ears, but I faced his sudden death. In the past few days, I visited one hospital after another, knowing there was little hope. Still, I refused to give up, anxiously awaiting the updated list of injured patients being released. Volunteers pat on my arm, and the sound of comfort made me fall deeper. When I filed a missing person report with the police, I had to fill out a ten-page form but filled out his information quickly. It turned out that our experience growing up together has carried me up to that point.
In my spare time, I host a local radio program in the Chinese-speaking community, and talk about how to face life and death. I thought I could be calm, but my heart was broken, and I couldn’t bear it all. After 9/11, I completely forgot that I became the de facto head of the family. When I thought of the tragedy from a human perspective, I couldn’t restrain the grief in my heart. At the time, I only thought of myself as the younger brother. When I talk with my father on the phone, I try to be calm, because my father always says, “the boss is done; I will bury him in my heart….” But when I talk with my other siblings on the phone, I always try to be calm and shed tears before speaking.
When I was in middle school, I read Yuan Mei’s essay on offering sacrifices to my sister. It was moving. Why can there be such a deep affection between brothers and sisters? I don’t have Yuan Mei’s literary talent to express this brotherhood. There is no difference in the feelings of losing a sister. My sister is coming to the United States to attend my brother’s funeral. Since I got married, this would be the first time we would get together for the Mid-Autumn Festival. It’s just that the eldest brother is gone, and the mooncake split between the four of us is now three. Time will dilute the grief, but how can I recover with my brother gone? But as the two rivers flow, our brotherhood will never be diminished.
Alexander is survived by his wife, Sunny, and his children, John and Grace. (Source: Original Article)