Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, January 30, 1992 TAG: 9201300490
SECTION: NEIGHBORS PAGE: W-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: CHARLES STEBBINS CORRESPONDENT
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
FRIENDSHIP REACHES ACROSS PACIFIC OCEAN
Chicken barbecues hold a special place in the memories of Jim Peters of Salem.It was at a chicken barbecue that he formed a special friendship that has lasted almost 20 years.
And Peters recently returned from a trip to Taiwan that resulted from that friendship.
In the early 1970s he befriended a young Chinese woman who had come to Salem in connection with her college work.
"She came here a stranger," he said.
Peters, officially James E. Peters, is retired after a career as a coach and teacher at the old Andrew Lewis High School in Salem and treasurer of both Roanoke County and Salem.
He also is the "eye donor man," through whom the Salem Lions Club has persuaded more than 30,000 people to sign up to have their eyes used after their deaths so that others may see.
The Chinese woman is Li-Ten Chu. She came to Salem in 1973 for an 18-month session at Lewis-Gale Hospital in connection with her study toward a master's degree in chemistry at the University of Virginia.
Peters said that Li-Ten had briefly met only one person in Salem, Leslie Watkins, a teacher at Andrew Lewis. Then one day Peters and his wife, Lorna, were having a chicken barbecue in the back yard of their home in Salem.
Watkins was among those invited. Because Li-Ten had arrived in town that afternoon, she went along to the barbecue with her.
"Leslie told us that Li-Ten didn't know anybody here and she needed a place to stay," Peters said.
Watkins, who has since died, did not have a place for her, he said.
"Our daughters were gone by then and we had extra room," Peters said. "The more we talked the more it seemed the thing to do."
Li-Ten moved into the Peters' home and stayed for her first six weeks in Salem. She later moved into her own apartment, but the friendship that grew during those first six weeks has lived and grown since.
While she was in Salem she attended Salem Baptist Church. She also renewed her acquaintance with Frank S.C. Yao, a friend from Taiwan who had come to study animal husbandry at Virginia Tech.
In the mid-1970s they got married at Salem Baptist Church. Peters said he and his wife acted as "mother of the bride" and put on the wedding for them.
The Chinese couple's first child, a daughter, was born in the United States. Peters said Li-Ten named her Lornali after his wife.
About 3 1/2 years later the family returned to Taiwan, but they did not leave the lives of Jim and Lorna Peters.
"We write regularly," Jim Peters said.
As an indication of their affection, Peters said that after a memorial service in 1990 after the death of Lorna Peters, Li-Ten and Frank donated $1,000 to the Virginia Eye Bank.
And they both have signed up - with Jim Peters, naturally - to donate their eyes after their deaths.
Also, their two daughters, Lornali and Lisa, have signed up. The daughters, who are attending colleges in the United States, plan to promote eye donation when they return to Taiwan, Peters said.
Eye donation has not caught on in Taiwan; but, Peters said, members of a Lions Club in Taipei, the capital, were greatly interested in how he has signed up so many people.
He gave a talk on that subject to the club while on his recent trip. He spoke in English and Li-Ten was his interpreter, he said, although many of the club members could understand English.
This was Peters' second trip to Taiwan, both times to visit Li-Ten and her family. The other trip was in 1979.
Peters said one of his greatest impressions of Taiwan is that the people are smart, hard-working and polite.
"All of them are happy and everybody seems to be working," he said.
Families in the country are close and young people take care of old people, Peters said. And when death occurs, families bury the dead in the yard of the family home, often inside ornate cottages.
People there are health-conscious, and walk avidly for exercise.
"Rain doesn't stop them," he said.