Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, June 6, 1990 TAG: 9006060357
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-1 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: MADELYN ROSENBERG NEW RIVER VALLEY BUREAU
DATELINE: PULASKI LENGTH: Medium
Now Lui has a grasp of the language. He also has a 3.96 grade-point average, more than $3,000 in scholarships to Virginia Tech - and the spotlight. Lui was salutatorian Tuesday night for Pulaski County High School's graduating class of 454 students.
He began his two-minute address to his fellow graduates by thanking his teachers "without whom I would be making this speech in Chinese."
He also spoke of freedom. "From this day on, we can fly as high as the wings of our dreams can take us," he said.
The other salutatorians, Tina Olinger and Brooks Newsome, spoke of memories, pride and new beginnings before the graduates moved down the crowded aisles of the packed gymnasium to receive their diplomas.
Nelson Lafon and Andrew Loftus were valedictorians for the class of 1990, which received a total of about $205,000 in scholarship money.
About 22 percent of the class will be moving on to four-year colleges. Another 35 percent will be attending two-year schools.
"My father thought everything depended on getting a good education," Lui said Tuesday before the ceremony. "He was right. He always pushed us to make good grades."
But the 19-year-old graduate didn't always do well in school. "In Vietnam, I had trouble," he said. "I had to have a tutor. Maybe I was more motivated here. I had to excel because of my language deficiency."
Schools were different in Vietnam, Lui said. For one thing, it was more formal. "We had to greet the teacher as soon as he came in. Here, the teacher is more of a friend than a master."
Lui hopes to become a math teacher after he graduates from Virginia Tech - though English was the only subject in school where he earned straight A's.
"In eighth grade, my algebra teacher introduced me to math and I saw the fun of it," Lui said. "I decided then to model myself into being like him: a teacher."
The Luis - Chi, Mai, and seven of their children - came to America in 1979 by way of Saigon, Malaysia, Hong Kong, San Francisco, Atlanta and Roanoke. An older son, Thanh, had come to America a year earlier to escape the draft.
"We were boat people," Lui said.
The Luis, who are Chinese, fled their home outside of Saigon with a suitcase full of important papers, some family possessions and a little money when Hung was 8 years old.
"I thought we were just moving," he said. "I didn't know we were going that far. It kind of dawned on me when we had to crouch down in the car and hide that we weren't going just anywhere."
The family was on the cramped boat for about a week, with a few other families, Lui said. When the boat landed in Malaysia, it sank.
"I remember we had to sleep on the beach," Lui said. "Then we went to the camp. We had to pay about $300 to buy just a roof and a bed."
There were no walls, and the bed was just a raised structure made of branches "to keep the insects from crawling on us."
Ten months later, the family moved to a small house in Pulaski, sponsored by the First Presbyterian Church.
"My first taste of American food was McDonald's," Lui said. "I remember the ketchup - we'd never seen a sauce so thick and red."
His first view of Pulaski was from a mountain just outside of town.
"I remembered going up on a mountain and looking down. I saw a dome - I guess it was a church, and I thought this was a lively town," he said with a smile. "It turned out to be a little quieter than that."
The Luis finally reached Pulaski in September and started school almost immediately.
"We went to the house and not one of them spoke a word of English," said Anne Montgomery, a retired teacher and a church member close to the Luis. "We taught the children one sentence: `You do what he does.' "
That way, Montgomery said, the children could be told to mimic the other students in school.
"The teachers were wringing their hands," Montgomery said. But the new students caught on quickly. They learned to drink their milk and scrape their lunch trays.
"They learned the language from the other students and from their course work," Montgomery said.
They had already learned to respect education. "I think they worship it," she said.
by CNB