'Angels' Helped Make Way from China to Oakdale

David Wong walked out of China in 1962 at age 13.

And with the help of a few “angels” along the way, he made it all the way to Oakdale.

Wong and his 11-year-old brother headed for Hong Kong on foot because of a food shortage, he said.

“Nobody wants to separate from their parents, especially at that age, under normal circumstances,” he said. But as the eldest son, he hoped that he could get a job in Hong Kong and send some money back to his family.

They had a distant uncle there that they hoped to find, he said.

After they got over the border, he said, they were confined to a restricted area. That’s where they were interviewed by the Hong Kong bureau chief for Newsweek, who was out with his wife checking on the refugee situation.

“For some reason, an hour or so later, they came back … and decided to smuggle us out to the city,” he said.

He and his brother were probably the youngest refugees there, he said.

The boys went to live with the couple—Robert and Inger McCabe—as foster sons. The couple helped them find the uncle they’d been seeking, however, he told them he couldn’t take care of them or help them out because he was just a laborer.

The McCabes insisted the boys attend school at their young age, he said, despite his intention to work to help his family.

“Psychologically, it bothered me for years, because I got plenty of food, my clothes were no longer patched,” and yet he couldn’t help support his family, he said.

In 1966, the McCabes got word from Newsweek that they were moving back to the U.S., he said, so they sent the boys to a Lutheran transitional camp in Spokane, WA, where they learned about the American culture and some conversational English.

At that time the McCabes connected with another couple—a professor and his wife living in St. Paul—whom they knew wanted another child, said Virginia Mather, who along with her husband Richard took the boys in.

“We were quite fond of them, and they had seemed to be like our own sons,” she said. “We were very happy to have another child, and what we got was twins in a way.”

The boys were well-trained in Chinese ethics—extremely respectful, she said.

The Mathers were a good fit for the boys because the professor, Richard Mather, who is the son of missionaries, was born in China and knew the language.

Still, the transition wasn’t easy, Wong said. At age 17, he was learning his ABCs.

“It was the hardest 26 sounds that I ever tried to learn,” he said.

He struggled through Murray High School in St. Paul and graduated, he said, and then headed to New York to attend a technical school.

After that he got a job with an electronics company, met and married his wife and then the two started their own liquor store in Queens, he said. But after having their second child in the late ‘70s, they decided they wanted to leave the city, so they sold the store and moved to the St. Cloud area, where they ran a restaurant. 

It was unfortunate circumstances that brought Wong to Oakdale in 1995. He and his wife had sold their restaurant, however, his brother Sam Wong, who escaped from China with him, had gotten in a terrible car accident in Woodbury. His brother’s wife, who had founded the Oakdale Mall’s China House restaurant, was killed, and he no longer wanted to run the restaurant.  

So David Wong and his wife Mary purchased the restaurant and ran it until 2003, he said. And although the restaurant is no longer operating, Wong still makes Oakdale his home. He now teaches Tai Chi classes out of his home—on the driveway on nice days, he said. It’s a skill he picked up in New York.

He tells students the classes are, “nothing fancy, in my humble home,” he said. “The only fanciness is the material you’re going to learn.”

A lesson Wong has learned from his own life, which he passes on to his students, he said, is how to give without asking for anything in return.

Both families who fed, clothed, schooled, housed and took care of him and his brother not only asked for nothing in return, but never mentioned how much they’ve done for the men, he said.

“I try to learn (kindness) from them … and explain it to my children and also my students,” he said. “When you help out somebody, please do not expect anything in return. Don’t even expect a thank you from the people, any people who receive your help.”

That doesn’t mean Wong isn’t grateful, though, he said. He still visits the Mathers regularly, he said, and considers them the “angels of our lives.”