Family Story

Since my grandparents live in Bremerton, Washington, and I live in Hawaii (which is about 2,000 miles away), I hardy ever get to see them, maybe once or twice a year. But whenever I do see them, my grandfather has some story to tell me, either about his family, his childhood back in China, his work for the OSS (which later became the CIA) during World War II, or some other important thing that happened in his life. I was never really interested in any of his stories, but he was my grandpa, and I knew how much he enjoyed telling his stories, especially to me, since I am his only grandchild (which also means I'm a little spoiled by him), so I would sit there, with something to occupy my hands, like homework, or the jewelry I was making at the time. One story that stood out to me in particular, because I thought it was so interesting, was when he was able to work for the OSS during World War II, because of his background.

My grandpa is one of 8 children in his family, they all were born in America, but because taking care of 8 children was too much for his mother (my great-grandmother), she sent the first 6 back to China, to be raised by her mother (my great-great-grandmother). As a result of growing up on China, he became bi-lingual, in both Chinese, and English (thought his English isn't very good).

When the Second World War, started, my Grandfather decided to enlist in the navy, as a sailor. He was first sent to Alaska, as a painter (I don't know exactly how that is serving the navy, but I know that was what he did), then when one of the generals there found out he was fluent in Chinese; he said that he was wasting his talents, as a painter. And gave him orders to go to (Washington, DC), to get trained to become an undercover agent, in China, to spy on the Japanese, who had control over the Chinese government at the time. Since he was Chinese, and spoke the language, he would look like just another Chinese, and be able to pass on important information about the Japanese to America.

My mother said that I was pretty lucky to get to hear this story, since he usually keeps all his stories about his work with the OSS to himself. But I was never able to get him to tell me any of the information he found out while he was undercover in China, even though the information would have no real importance anymore.

This is one of my favorite stories that my grandfather tells me, because I have always thought the life of a spy was so fascinating, especially after I started watching "Alias", which I know is probably not a real account of a spy's life, just Hollywood's interpretation of one, but they do get to use all those high-tech tools (we don't even know exist), travel all over the world, learn to speak many different languages, and go under many different aliases, which would be so exciting. So I think it is so interesting to know that someone in my family worked for, what would be later known as the CIA.