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Transcription: [00:07:21]
{SPEAKER name="Miu Eng (Interviewee)"}
They did offer, I think some were employment for the- for the teenagers in the community, uh, and that's when I first thought to be more involved and then eventually that's how- um, I did- I joined at a tail end of the- there was a, there was a festival one summer, in Chinatown, and I really was not part of that at all.

[00:07:45]
{SPEAKER name="Miu Eng (Interviewee)"}
It was until after the festival and um, and the group decided they wanted to produce a newsletter that I somehow became part of that and I think it might've been because I was with the church group at the time and I somehow joined up with the eastern wind group, and, you know.

[00:08:06]
{SPEAKER name="Samir Meghelli, Ph.D. (Interviewer)"}
And so, you didn't necessarily know any of the other members of eastern wind before you joined?

[00:08:11]
{SPEAKER name="Miu Eng (Interviewee)"}
No, no I did not. They were no older, they were like only in college, and I was still in high school, so.

[00:08:19]
{SPEAKER name="Samir Meghelli, Ph.D. (Interviewer)"}
And, did your family speak Mandarin or Cantonese?

{SPEAKER name="Miu Eng (Interviewee)"}
Cantonese. Cantonese and Toisanese.

[00:08:25]
{SPEAKER name="Samir Meghelli, Ph.D. (Interviewer)"}
Toisanese specifically. Okay. Was your family a member of any of the family associations or any of the other, like [[?]] or CCBA, or..?

[00:08:39]
{SPEAKER name="Miu Eng (Interviewee)"}
You know its interesting, the "Eng"'s, also the spelling sometimes "Ng" but we- when they translate our last name they made it "Eng" which is a lot easier to pronounce. Its very- I never ran into another "Eng" when we were in Hong Kong. But here there were like a bunch of 'em.

[00:09:00]
{SPEAKER name="Miu Eng (Interviewee)"}
So I think there was an association, but, you know we were- maybe um my father was involved but we the kids, you know, we never went to any meetings or anything like that.

[00:09:11]
{SPEAKER name="Samir Meghelli, Ph.D. (Interviewer)"}
And I forgot to ask, do you know how or why your family ended up in Washington DC of all places?

[00:09:18]
{SPEAKER name="Miu Eng (Interviewee)"}
Wow, okay. So, my- lets start with my grandfather.

[00:09:23]
{SPEAKER name="Miu Eng (Interviewee)"}
My grandfather, I guess he was born in the 1910's around there somewhere.

[00:09:29]
{SPEAKER name="Miu Eng (Interviewee)"}
So he came to the United States as young man, and then went back to China, got married, had a baby who was my father, and left. And never came back.

[00:09:41]
{SPEAKER name="Miu Eng (Interviewee)"}
So, when, when the, when the immigration laws changed during president Johnson's administration, yeah, in 65. Then we were, you know, they were letting more immigrants into the country.

[00:09:59]
{SPEAKER name="Miu Eng (Interviewee)"}
And my grandmother came first, and then a couple years later, the rest of us, the 6 of us, we came.

[00:10:05]
{SPEAKER name="Miu Eng (Interviewee)"}
And that was the first time my father met his father, my grandfather. And we had very little knowledge of what our grandfather was doing it was like, you know.

[00:10:19]
{SPEAKER name="Miu Eng (Interviewee)"}
But um, but he apparently settled in the DC area, so you know we- that's how come we ended up here.

[00:10:26]
{SPEAKER name="Samir Meghelli, Ph.D. (Interviewer)"}
And what was your grandfathers name?

[00:10:28]
{SPEAKER name="Miu Eng (Interviewee)"}
Um, wow. Um, everyone called him Jimmy. Like, you know, Jim Eng.

[00:10:35]
{SPEAKER name="Samir Meghelli, Ph.D. (Interviewer)"}
Jim Eng, okay.

[00:10:37]
{SPEAKER name="Miu Eng (Interviewee)"}
And then, like his Chinese nickname was [[?]], which is like "tall man".

[00:10:43]
{SPEAKER name="Miu Eng (Interviewee)"}
You know like, they, some of the nicknames are very descriptive, if you're short they call you shorty, if you're tall they call you, they, you know, you have buck teeth they say "buck teeth so and so".

[00:10:52]
{SPEAKER name="Miu Eng (Interviewee)"}
It's very-[both laugh]

[00:10:59]
{SPEAKER name="Miu Eng (Interviewee)"}
Not very, uh, uh, polite, you know. [Laughs]

[00:11:03]
{SPEAKER name="Samir Meghelli, Ph.D. (Interviewer)"}
And actually, there was a [[?]],

[00:11:06]
{SPEAKER name="Miu Eng (Interviewee)"}
Yea, there was another [[?]], um, Robert Lee's dad,yea. So my grandfather was 6 feet, which is very unusual, and my grandmother is like 4 feet 8. So it's like this. [both laugh]

[00:11:16]
{SPEAKER name="Samir Meghelli, Ph.D. (Interviewer)"}
So he got the nickname [[?]].

[00:11:21]
{SPEAKER name="Miu Eng (Interviewee)"}
Yea, as a result, yea, of his height. Um, but, and then they actually were lucky enough- my grandparents- uh, live in Waloak, when it first opened up.

[00:11:33]
{SPEAKER name="Samir Meghelli, Ph.D. (Interviewer)"}
Oh wow.

[00:11:34]
{SPEAKER name="Miu Eng (Interviewee)"}
Yea.

[00:11:36]
{SPEAKER name="Samir Meghelli, Ph.D. (Interviewer)"}
Uh, what do you remember about, the opening of Waloak, or the importance or the role of Waloak in the neighborhood?

[00:11:44]
{SPEAKER name="Miu Eng (Interviewee)"}
I gotta be honest, I was too involved in my own life to be really, you know, other than like you know, ooh, grandma and grandpa are moving, you know. So I was like, okay, great! [laughs]

[00:11:56]
{SPEAKER name="Miu Eng (Interviewee)"}
I thought it was, I mean, I thought it was awesome that they would have a place, and it's a place of community for the elderly, you know, uh, for folks so that they can feel comfortable, and have their own sense of belonging to a place.

[00:12:16]
{SPEAKER name="Samir Meghelli, Ph.D. (Interviewer)"}
And, um, one of the, even though there was discussions for a long time about the necessity, and the desire for a kind of a housing in Chinatown, um, part of the reason it became more possible was because of the displacement caused by the building the convention center.

[00:12:36]
{SPEAKER name="Miu Eng (Interviewee)"}
Convention center, I live across from the old convention center, yea.

[00:12:40]
{SPEAKER name="Samir Meghelli, Ph.D. (Interviewer)"}
Oh really?

[00:12:41]
{SPEAKER name="Miu Eng (Interviewee)"}
Yea, so we, we uh, you know, it was a uh, more houses, and then it was gone.

[00:12:48]
{SPEAKER name="Samir Meghelli, Ph.D. (Interviewer)"}
Did it impact your family, or was it just across the street?

[00:12:52]
{SPEAKER name="Miu Eng (Interviewee)"}
Um, we, well we rented out, it was a roadhouse we lived in. And, but, here's the thing, my um, my brother was telling me that once they tore down the housing and- across the street- you could see like giant rats.

[00:13:11]
[both laugh]

[00:13:13]
{SPEAKER name="Miu Eng (Interviewee)"}
In the middle you know there was like a big, uh, it was a very wide street with an island between, and uh, it was you know, one day, excavated.

[00:13:23]
{SPEAKER name="Miu Eng (Interviewee)"}
You know, the rats will have no place to go, and believe me living in that building, you literally turn at the night you turn the light on and you can see that the rat will scatter away [both laugh], it got so bad that my mother started hang a basket of a bread from the ceiling [[?]] anything's there on the ground rats will get to eat and they will chew through like you know anything to get to the food source. It was not nice place to live. [Miu laughs].

[00:14:02]
{SPEAKER name="Samir Meghelli, Ph.D. (Interviewer)"}
So do you actually not remember the construction? Or the impact it had on a neighborhood the fact that this huge um ...

[00:14:12]
{SPEAKER name="Miu Eng (Interviewee)"}
What year was that?

[00:14:014]
{SPEAKER name="Samir Meghelli, Ph.D. (Interviewer)"}
It was actually around um 1980 80 81

[00:14:20]
{SPEAKER name="Miu Eng (Interviewee)"}
I was gone by then. I would ev...um um GW had this a um program for D.C residents it's called the equal opportunity program EOP, yeah. And the reason I had this programs because here it just school in middle D.C. And none of the surrounding residents would attending because it's too expensive. So they um... offer this program to um... the D.C. students um...full tuition paid you know if you keep up your grades. So I was one of the people who were lucky enough to um... to go to school at GW and by then I was gone. I was at GW.

[00:15:05]
[both laugh]

[00:15:07]
{SPEAKER name="Miu Eng (Interviewee)"}
I was at GW. See you later, guys.

[00:15:08]
[both laugh]

[00:15:010]
{SPEAKER name="Samir Meghelli, Ph.D. (Interviewer)"}
Um...just looking at these some newsletters

[00:15:12]
{SPEAKER name="Miu Eng (Interviewee)"}
um hmm

[00:15:012]
{SPEAKER name="Samir Meghelli, Ph.D. (Interviewer)"}
um... and obviously knowing that the clear path that you've taken um...

[00:15:15]
{SPEAKER name="Miu Eng (Interviewee)"}
yeah...

[00:15:016]
{SPEAKER name="Samir Meghelli, Ph.D. (Interviewer)"}
I'm wondering when did your interest in art um and and being an artist develop and where did that come from?

[00:15:24]
{SPEAKER name="Miu Eng (Interviewee)"}
um I think it's really. You know we have no source of entertainment toys I mean we are pretty um um poor when we growing up so um you know making um I would do my own um paper dolls you know and so it's really sort of from um like necessity is the mother of inventions so that I'm saying. So I decided ouu... I'm not too bad at it you know so I would sort of um self taught really but then at [[?]] junior high I had this really good art teacher. He encourage me and we would um um he would take us to exhibits or summer class at Smithsonian Natural History Museum where they you know have these summer programs for D.C students to luncheon that sort of thing. So with self- um um well some encouragement from my teacher and so just sort of happy accident. You know because in a Chinese culture, when my mother heard that I'm gonna major in you know in Design which is like what is that. She was the only you know the famous artist is the dead artist.

[00:16:56]
[both laugh]

[00:16:57]
{SPEAKER name="Miu Eng (Interviewee)"}
That why like why you are pursuing this.

[00:16:058]
{SPEAKER name="Samir Meghelli, Ph.D. (Interviewer)"}
hmm

[00:16:59]
{SPEAKER name="Miu Eng (Interviewee)"}
You...you know This is the waste of time so um so it's definitely not encouraged at home but it's more um sort of you know opportunity as well as um um I was lucky enough to have I had a at GW my junior year no my sophomore year when I was still undeclared like I don't know what I wanna do um they started new program in Graphic Design

[00:17:028]
{SPEAKER name="Samir Meghelli, Ph.D. (Interviewer)"}
hmm

[00:17:29]
{SPEAKER name="Miu Eng (Interviewee)"}

and so it's really a sense of you know a lucky timing.

[00:17:032]
{SPEAKER name="Samir Meghelli, Ph.D. (Interviewer)"}
hmm hmm

[00:17:33]
{SPEAKER name="Miu Eng (Interviewee)"}

Um when I was work on eastern wind there was another um Mikio Taguchi. He was the one who was you know he went to Virginia Commonwealth who was already a designer so everyone sort of look to him to get involved but he was too busy and I was in high school, I was available so I sort of like um you know

Transcription Notes:
Transcription is completed except for few ambiguous names that are unable to be made out.