Royal Luncheon
One day in early December last year the King and Queen of Thailand dropped in a Chinese restaurant in London for lunch.
They could not have chosen a better place for a purely Chinese meal. The restaurant is called "Lung Feng", literally meaning Dragon and Phoenix which in China signify the king and the queen.
In addition, the chef who prepared the luncheon was none other than Kuo Teh-lou who defected from the Chinese Communist "embassy" in London early last year.
The royal couple was delighted, because they had on their menu Kuo's specialty, "Peking duck", a famous Chinese dish.
A spokesman of the Thai Embassy emphasized that the luncheon had "no political implications." Yet among those who dined with the King and the Queen was Dr. Y. S. Chen, first secretary of the former Republic of China Embassy in London and now director of the private Free China Information Service in that city.
A Punctual Wedding
Of the countless refugees from the Communist-controlled Chinese mainland, few have had the luck of Fu Tsung, 26-year-old Chinese pianist who sought asylum in the West two years ago.
The young virtuoso not only commands a large audience in major European cities but has won the hand of pretty Miss Zamira Menuhin, 21-year-old daughter of American violinist Yehudi Menuhin.
On December 18, Fu joined in wedlock with his bride at London. The bride, in a, dress and jacket of apple-green Thai silk with matching shoes, was given away by her father at a London register office. She wore a wreath of lilies-of-the-valley in her dark hair.
Fu, who has a reputation for unpunctuality and missed a concert the month before because he mistook the date, was 20 minutes early at the register office.
Fu flew to London from Warsaw after disobeying an order from the Peiping regime summoning him to return to the mainland. He had studied music in Warsaw for a number of years.
United States
Man behind the Scenes
Early on the morning of October 13, mice were carried into outer space by an American missile and returned alive to earth.
Weeks later when confronted with a news clipping of the event during an interview in his office, the human brain behind the mechanical brain which kept the missile on course for the safe recovery of the mice could· not suppress a humble but satisfied smile.
He smiled although nowhere did the story mention the name of Dr. Wen-tsing Chow, Shanghai-born electronics engineer who came to head the Atlas Missile Program for the American Bosch Arma Corporation.
"We scientists work best behind the scenes," said the man who designed and developed the digital computer for the automatic navigation system which many advocates believe will hold the key to interplanetary travel of the future.
The system, better known as inertial guidance, can guide missiles accurately to targets over 6,000 miles away. But Dr. Chow feels this is a specialized, insignificant off-shoot of the system's potentiality.
The function of the computer in an inertial guidance system is to direct the space craft. It receives signals from precision accelerometers which "sense" the motion and position of the vehicle in space. These references are used by the computer to direct the craft along a prescribed course to its destination.
With refinement Dr. Chow believes he can design a digital computer for manned space ship and is actually working toward this end.
Dr. Chow does not regard his rapid rise to the top of his profession as anything phenomenal. "This is a land of opportunity. You need only to open yours to move ahead," he said.
A graduate of the famous Chiaotung University in Shanghai, Dr. Chow migrated to the United States and in 1941 entered the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Explaining why he chose to study electronics, specilizing in research on automatic control system, he said: "The war was accelerating scientific advancement, and the technology in the field of electronics had been pushed to the point where I realized that automatic mechanisms would become the order of the day."
Dr. Chow's thesis on his work at MIT attracted the attention of General Electric Company. Assigned to the company's aeronautical engineering division, Dr. Chow soon advanced to the head of the department of weapons control systems.
After the war he returned to MIT to teach and continue his research on electronics and automatic control systems. In 1948 he accepted a research associateship at New York University where he began his pioneering work on inertial guidance. His work there again attracted wide attention. This time offers poured in from all the major electronics equipment producing firms in the United States.
"That's how I came to work for Arma," Dr. Chow said. "The executives were looking for a man who had some background and experience in coping with the problems of inertial guidance."
What is his plan for the future? "It might sound prosaic considering the various outlets open to me, but I would like to expand into administrative work. I expect to be heading a moderate sized company. I have experienced the exhilaration of seeing an idea develop stage by stage into reality. Now I would like to take something small and make it big."
One of his close associates feels Dr. Chow would be an ideal man to run a company. As hand of Arma's inertial guidance program, Dr. Chow has had "unbounded success" in evaluating problems, making decisions and coordinating work of various groups.
"Wherever he tries his hand, he succeeds. That's the story of Dr. Chow ever since he came to this country," the associate said.
Scientist Awarded
D. Kuan H. Sun, manager of the West-inghouse radiation and nucleonics laboratory in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, has received the 1961 achievement award of the Chinese Institute of Engineers of New York for bringing the atomic age to free China.
A graduate of National Chekiang University, the Chinese scientist went to the United States in 1936. In 1959 he came to Taiwan on a Fulbright professorship to Nantional Tsinghua University at Hsinchu. There he headed and helped to organize the university's institute of nuclear science.
Drum for Inauguration
If things go well, a famous drum corps composed of overseas Chinese girls in San Francisco will go to Washington and take part in the presidential inaugural parade on January 20.
The "Chinese Girls Drum Corps", well-known for its distinguished role in many parades in San Francisco and other cities on the American west coast, has received an invitation from Washington to participate in the January 20 parade in celebration of President-elect John F. Kennedy's inauguration. The corps is hesitating in accepting the invitation because of the lack of travelling expenses. Washington authorities, while extending the invitations, provide no expenses for the participating units.
Luckily, the San Francisco Chamber of Commerce enthusiastically took the Chinese Girls Drum Corps under its wing by starting a fund-raising drive to finance the corps' trip to Washington.
Appealing for free contributions, G. L. Fox, the chamber's general manager, said that "San Francisco is proud that it is the home of the largest Chinese community in the world outside the Orient. No other group could so well express the city's international flavor as these San Francisco Chinese school girls in their ancient colorful costumes."
The chamber's action immediately received endorsement of the San Francisco News, which editorially urged San Francisco residents to contribute generously to make the corps' trip to Washington possible.
Japan
Equal Status Obtained
The Chinese Embassy in Tokyo last month succeeded in solving a long-stand problem—the residential status of the Taiwan-born Chinese who entered Japan before the war and that of their descendants.
After protracted parleys the Japanese government finally granted these Chinese permanent residence.
The same status was granted long ago to the Chinese residents who migrated to Japan from the mainland before the war. But no such privilege was given the Chinese from Tai wan because of technical difficulties arising from the fact that they became naturalized Japanese citizens during the war. They have since the end of the war regained their Chinese citizenship.
Negotiations between the two governments on this problem started several years ago. But it was not until Ambassador Chang Li-sheng assumed his office did the negotiations pick up momentum.
The Chinese Embassy and the Japanese Foreign Office will hold another meeting soon to iron out a few technicalities before a formal agreement is signed.
Philippines
Head Count Proposed
The Philippine House Immigration and Naturalization Committee was reported to have made strong representations with President Carlos Garcia to order a nationwide check of all foreigners, especially the Chinese.
The committee, headed by Representative Nicanor Yniguez, will also request Malacanang to enlist the help of the Philippine constabulary in conducting the head count in preparation for a proposed alien registration law.
The Philippine 'Immigration Bureau had earlier opposed' a check-up, stating it unnecessary.
Taipei
Relief to Vientiane
The government last month allocated US$15,000 for the relief of Chinese and Laotian refugees in Vientiane, the war-ravaged capital city of Laos.
Ten thousand U. S. dollars will be used to relieve the Laotian people while the remaining US$5,000 will be spent to ease the suffering of the Chinese refugees. The money is to be used to buy food and medicine in Thailand and then sent to Vientiane for distribution.
The Chinese suffered extensively during the recent civil strife between the Communist Pathet Lao and the troops under General Phoumi Nosavan.
Thirty Chinese residents in the Laos capital were killed and more than 100 others wounded during the armed conflict, according to reports reaching Taipei from the Chinese consulate in Vientiane.
Over 1,000 houses in the Chinese community were destroyed by fire and several thousand overseas Chinese rendered homeless, the reports said. Other property losses suffered by the Chinese were also reported.
The reports said Lin Hsin-fa, a Chinese community leader in Vientiane, suffered loss of more than US$200,000 when his rice ashop and sauce manufacturing factory were razed by fire.
One-third of the Chinese in Laos are living in Vientiane. When the fighting broke out, they were unable to escape and many of them were thus killed or wounded in the fighting.
Angry Old Man
A lonely old man of 81 returned to the land of his birth in mid-December after an absence of 48 years.
The octogenarian is Chou Li-kuan, who returned with 205 Chinese repatriates from Indonesia. He left behind his son in that country to continue his business, the bulk of which has been confiscated by the Djakarta government.
Chou left Taiwan for Indonesia when the island was just ceded to the Japanese. He worked as a laborer. Slowly, he amassed a fortune of 7,000,000 rupiahs by dint of diligence and thrift.
Because of his loyalty to the Chinese government in Taipei, the old man was arrested by the Indonesian government in 1959. Though he was soon released, the Djakarta authorities seized 4,000,000-rupiah worth of his properties.
Commenting on the Indonesian persecution of Chinese residents, Chou said indignantly, "I don't think a government that specializes in confiscating people's properties can stand long."
Chou and the other returnees were each given NT$1,000 as cash relief upon their arrival. Like the 1,700-odd early returnees, the new repatriates will start their life anew in Taiwan.
Indonesia
Nationality Accord
Indonesian Foreign Minister Subandrio stated on last December 15 that his government would accord "the most humane treatment" to overseas Chinese in the country but in return he expected them to help in Indonesia's economic development.
Subandrio was speaking at a ceremony marking the signing of an "agreement" on the implementation of a dual nationality accord between Indonesia and the Communist regime in Peiping. The nationality pact, reached in 1955, specifies that the Chinese people in Indonesia must either become Indonesian citizens or chose to retain their Chinese citizenship within a prescribed period of time.
In Taipei, observers pointed out that the Indonesian government might, at the end of the two-year period, find another problem on its hands. What if some of the overseas Chinese refuse to accept Chinese Communist citizenship and also do not wish to become naturalized Indonesians? This has happened before in India.