Mr Woo YanTak's Youthful Years

Peter Y. Woo, 4/2005

         Preface. My father Mr Y.T.Woo was a person of genuine humility. He never even contemplated about having a biography written, by himself or anybody else. I am thankful that about 7 years ago I could sit by him and wrote down some chronological events of his life, especially on how he struggled through his faith. He reviewed my draft quite carefully, and made quite a few deletions and upgrades. So this article is based on these records.

      I shall call him "Ah Yunn" when he is a child, as I can picture him running around as a lively schoolboy, and Y.T. otherwise. This way you can feel better about his personality other than "my Dad" or "my father". Names of places I often spell in the Cantonese fashion, familiar to ourselves, sometimes with standard Pinyin spelling in parentheses.

         Ancestors. Y.T.'s grandpa was Woo HimHung (1830-1889) (Cantonese: "Hung" rhymes with "tongue"). [ As a boy, I was rolling in laughter at his funny name. Actually "him" means humility, "hung" means "smooth-sailing", or prosperous.] He was from Borshan Village, HokShan County, GuangDong Province. He came to HK (Hong Kong) to look for jobs, and one day he got somewhat drunk, and stumbled into a Christian church. There he heard the gospel, liked it, and believed. Later on, because of his faith, he got kicked out of the family by his father, who was a relatively wealthy man. He was taught by the German missionaries of the Berlin Lutheran Mission, and eventually became a pastor and medicine man at ChiuChow (Pinyin: ChaoZhou, at eastern tip of the province). He was frequently taking trips to the country villages, carrying a load of medicine and gospel booklets for sale.

      One day he was caught by a mob, together with another young preacher. They were locked up in a cottage, and the mob intended to butcher them, but they had no sword. So they all went downhill to look for a big knife. After a while his preacher friend badly needed to go to bathroom. He pushed open the door, and found that all the mob was gone. So they escaped by God's hand. Similar near-death incidents happened more in his life.

      He lived at the same time as Hudson Taylor or D.L.Moody. His life was not long, but God gave him many children and grandchildren, far more than his brothers or cousins. Seven sons and four daughters. Four older sons was from his first wife, and three more from the second wife, among whom was Woo YeeDoong, father of Y.T.Woo. This second wife has the name "Maria Hoong", raised up in a Convent (Catholic?) for abandoned children in Macao. So it was likely that her father was a Portuguese sailor, and that means Y.T.Woo has 12.5% Portuguese blood. Perhaps it is the reason that Y.T.Woo's older brother Woo HingTak has curly hair and a high nose.

      Mr Woo YeeDoong, (1884 1948) Y.T.Woo's father, my grandpa, was a kind hearted generous man. [But his papers spelled his name as "U I Tung", because "U" is pronounced "Woo", and "I" is pronounced as "Yi", and so he was Mr. "U"] He was good in math, and worked in accounting for the Taikoo Dockyard, the main wharves for British Royal Navy. He was 5' 5" tall, loved to sing, and his tenor voice would soar in church services. He was a deacon for the St. Stephen's Anglican (Episcopalian) Church. It was not easy for him to raise up 8 kids with his clerical salary, and he never could afford to own a home. That means they had to move from one rented apartment to another. However, there is much joy and laughter in his home, because of their Christian faith.

      When he was 35 or so, he got spiritually earnest, and bought Christian books, led daily family devotions. His daughter LaiYung, my 3rd Aunt, recalled him eagerly went with his wife, my Grandma, to listen to Rev. Wong YuenSo, a revival preacher coming to HK from Alliance Bible Seminary in Guangxi province. He also developed an interest in contacting lost relatives, and very often he would invite poor folks in rags to stay in his house temporarily. In this way he discovered two Woo relatives, his own 3rd cousins, who were singing and playing er-hu (a stringed instrument) on the street for money. He was also quite active politically, refused to keep a queue on his head. [In China, before 1911, men without a queue will have their heads chopped off, by order of the Manchu government. Hong Kong was given to the British since 1840, so it is OK if he did not travel into China.] Then in Oct. 1911, Dr. Sun YatSen, father of the Republic, successfully overturned the 267 year old Manchu government after 9 unsuccessful bloody uprisings. Mr.Woo YeeDoong eagerly hoisted a flag of the new republic at his residence. [It was a flag with 5 colored stripes, representing the 5 main ethnic groups of China: Han, Manchu, Mongolian, Hui(Uighur), Tibetan. By the way, Sun YatSen was Cantonese, who practised medicine in Nethersole Hospital in HK, close to the Woo families, and attended church now known as Hop Yat Church in that neighborhood.]

      [In my childhood, I often sat down on a little stool with my cousin Alan Wu, listening to my Grandpa telling us this story: "There was a little boy living near the railroad tracks where his father drove a locomotive. One day the father drove the train close to his home, and there he saw his boy playing on the railroad tracks. It was too late to apply the brakes, so the man shouted, 'Boy, lie down flat right now!' The boy indeed lay flat between the tracks . . . " And then I loved to see Grandpa made his left hand flat and level like a dead fish, while his right thumb and pinkie represented the train's wheels, the right hand slowly gliding over the left hand, and the boy was unharmed. What is the moral of this story? It is: always listen to and obey your parents' order first, and ask "why" later.

      Afterwards I developed a romantic fancy about trains: why can they run on rails without sliding off the tracks? Why is the body of the train always 2 feet above the ground between the wheels? Is it to enable people to lie down there and not be crushed? etc. etc.]

         Ms Wong PikLin (1885 1965, "Pik" means lush green, "Lin" means lotus), my grandpa YeeDoong's wife, Y.T.Woo's mother, my grandma, was from the County of DoongGwoon, very close to Hong Kong. Her father, Mr Wong HimYue, was the pastor of Hong Kong Rhenish Church (of the Lutheran Rhenish Mission). Her mother Chan YookYing was born after her father Chan Lum was martyred for the faith. So Mr Y.T.Woo has martyr's blood in his veins too.

      She was an outstanding wife and mother. Every evening she would call loudly to all her children to gather together for evening prayer. Later on after Y.T. resided away from home, she still hosted a family gathering, once a week if possible, and definitely at holidays or birthdays, where she will have Y.T.give a devotional message.

      Grandpa YeeDoong, her husband, had strokes at age 58 or so, which eventually made him bedridden and could not speak for 5 years. He would see us, and often cry. Grandma faithfully serve him in bed, like a nurse, caring for his bodily needs, without any murmur or complaint, till he died at age 64. What a role model. She never criticized or showed personal favor or displeasure for any daughter or any daughter-in-law. This kind of godly love and kindness made her stand out like a saint, among many elderly people I know.

      Before she died in 1965, she solemnly ordered that there should be no eulogy for her life at her funeral. She did not want people to praise her for her virtues. Such is humility.

         The Youthful Y.T.Woo. Little "Ah Yunn" was number two among 8 kids. At birth his uncle Wong GuttMan, a doctor, examined him, and saw his rib cage was rather undersized. So he declared, "this child will not live long, I am afraid." [Well, God gave him almost 98 years.] Later on he was not strong, cried a lot, and his Dad, my Grandpa "did not like" him, some said. He was also quite creative, and somewhat naughty. Sometimes his mother wanted to discipline him, he would run out from one door to the balcony, then run into the house through another door, and mother could hardly catch him. So she got hold of HingTak, his older brother, and the two together finally catch him. Afterwards there is, of course, good use of the rattan stick, as expected.

      At three years old, he got severe diarrhea, and they said he was like a sick kitten, with only some breath left. They got him into Nethersole Hospital [I was born there], and a big German doctor stuck a big needle into him, injecting a big dose of perhaps saltine solution. Y.T. would never forget that painful shot. So he slowly recovered, but his legs were too weak to walk again. His kind mother cooked chicken soup for him every day, and thank God he regained his strength after months. Later on she would ask him, "Who made you well?" He would shyly reply, "It is Heavenly Father."

      At 4, his mother obtained a book called "The Traveler's Guide", a collection of anecdotal stories illustrating various aspects of the gospel and salvation. She would read a story to the two boys, Hing Tak and Y.T. She had such good intentions. But the boys only cared to listen to the adventures of the stories, and ignored the concluding paragraph explaining the gospel.

      At 10, one day Y.T. asked his mother: "If a man commits evil all his life, and before he dies he repents. Can he go to Heaven?" His mother said, "Yes, he can." "But if a man does good all his life, but commits sin just before he dies, can he go to Heaven?" His mother said, "Not so." We cannot blame her for not being taught clearly on the security of our salvation. But this caused much grief for Y.T. afterwards, because he constantly worried that some day he may die in an accident and not having confessed all his sins before that, and he would not go to Heaven. Once he did try to be a perfectly good boy, but after a few days he gave up in despair.

      At this time he was in 4th grade in Ying Wah Girls' School, where he was the only boy in class, and he said he felt "very lonely" during those years. But next year he transferred to fifth grade at a school called "Calisthentics School", where he did very well, till 7th grade.

      At 12, his father, Mr YeeDoong, has a spiritual revival. He would lead his family in morning devotions. He would give a short exposition, and everybody took turns to pray. At evening, Y.T.'s mother would get to the apartment's roof, where there is a little bridge to the other house, and call: "Hing, Yunn, Yoong, Hoong, Wah, Bea, Kay, gather for evening prayer." Bea was Beatrice Wong, Kay was Wong DseeKay, both being neice and nephews on the Wong side, who would come and play with the Woo's.

      After grade 7, Y.T. wished to go to Canton (now Guangzhou) to study at LingNan high school, where some of his cousins were. But at that time the fees were so high, that his father with his monthly salary less than 200 HK dollars could not afford. Eventually his father begged Diocesan Boys (high) School to take him. The school let him in on probation, but he became a brilliant student. Many of his schoolmates were half Western and half Chinese, so Y.T. became fluent in speaking or listening to English. Later on he saw that the Lord had a plan in stopping him from going to LingNan, because he would have gone easily later on to Union Theological Seminary in Canton, and became a Liberal theologically and could hardly have a salvation experience. [The Liberals do not believe in a literal Heaven or miracles or Jesus' Resurrection.]

      [When I was 10 or so, I saw a treasure in my mother's chest. It was an homework album, about 7" by 4", sewn by thread like old Chinese books, with 40 pages or so, where my father Y.T. has copied exemplary essays or articles, as part of his homework. Even when I was in elementary school sometimes I have to copy such essays in class, as a practice of Chinese penmanship. He did it in small brushstroke letters, about one centimeter per character. The characters were exquisitely beautiful, but a bit flashy and showy. For example the character "one", which is just a long dash, he would make the middle part very fine, but the two ends very thick and forceful. Mother also showed me his middle school semester reports. It scared me to shame. He got A's and 90's in all his grades. He was so fluent in English and Chinese, and I in neither. So . . . I was stirred to improve myself.]

      At 16 he was still worried about whether he has been saved. One night he dreamed that the Lord Jesus came back, and gathered all the disciples, and he was counted among the "saved" ones. He felt so relieved after waking up, "I finally get counted as saved".

      At 17 he felt like to become a preacher, and so was his sister LaiYung. Inspite of not not totally cleared on his own salvation, he had been preaching in church meetings, even preaching that one gets saved by trusting the Lord as one who died for you, and they said he preached well.

      Y.T.'s father, Mr YeeDoong, suffered from a clogged up nose all his life, and few of his descendents were spared of this jinx. We call it "Woo family nose". One night he was fancying what it is like to suffer eternally in Hell. Just the thought of suffering from a clogged up nose for eternity is already an unbearable nightmare. And then he recalled that the last days of a dying man are full of agony and pains. There is therefore this great need of finding a way of relief, so that one can die in consolation, that surpasses all these sufferings. Then came an idea! "Dedicate yourself to the ministry. That will do it." So he turned inside his blankets, and prayed, "Lord, I will become a preacher." In just that few words he dedicated himself.

         Tuberculosis. At age 19, December 6th, he took the University Entrance Matriculation Exam, and got A's in 4 subjects. His ambition is to be the best candidate in the whole Hong Kong, hopefully getting awarded the King Edward Scholarship, or else at lest a Government scholarship worth 1500 dollars HK, enough to cover 4 years of studies, tuition and room and board. This way he will not be a burden to his father, who had to feed 6 more younger brothers and sisters.

      Then suddenly he was coughing up blood.

      He went to his cousin Dr. Arthur Woo, J.P., a practicing doctor some 20+ years older, who confirmed it was T.B. [In those days TB was a number one killer in Chinese societies, before the invention of penicillin and other antibiotics. It brings on a slow but sure death. The lucky ones get healed only with long term rest with fresh air and nutrition.] So he gave up entering university. [I guess HKUniv. could not accept students with contagious diseases.]

      It was a heavy blow to him and his mother, who hoped he would become a physician, because he was such an intelligent young man. He thought of several cousins who already died at young age of tuberculosis. So his mother rented a little apartment in Aberdeen, just above the clinic of Dr. Arthur Woo. Aberdeen was a fishermen village, facing southwest, and the air is fresh there. Most fishermen families live on their boats instead of on land.

      While he was recuperating in the best ways he knows, he began to preach occasionally at a Baptist chapel around there, as well as sharing gospel tracts to the fishermen community. He learned their dialect of Cantonese, learned different ways of rowing a boat, like with one long oar, and myriad of ways of catching fish. You can do it with rod and hook, or with a hand net scooping into the water from a boat, or with a 10 foot wide bowl-like net with a big 15 ft. pole operating like a see-saw, with a piece of rock as counterpoise. Or if you have a sail boat, use a dragnet shaped like a big pouch some 20 ft. long. Another way is to line up 10 boats in a line, with nets like walls, and someone hitting the water with big thuds as the boats close in to form a circle, scaring the fish to swim into the circle for a big haul. Even with a line and hooks, there are ways of tying lead weights to the line, and using different baits for different kinds of fish. To him, life's happiest, ecstatic, moments occur when you feel the tug of the line on your finger, and you are ready to snap the line hoping the hook will get the fish. One day he asked a fisherman to let him row the little boat with one long oar. Later on it went into deeper waters, and a boatman passing by shouted at his boatman, for letting such a novice row the boat into waters where there were rapid underwater currents. He could swim quite well, may be even for half a mile in the sea.

      He said it was a miracle that God heard his prayers and gradually healed him from TB, despite some overexertion physically and long walks, due to ignorance. So he became a preacher.

         Finally, the assurance of salvation. There in Aberdeen Y.T. met an older young man, Mr Cheng Follum, who owned a little barge, which he donated to the Fishermen's Gospel Mission after his conversion. He was then studying at Alliance Bible Seminary at Wuchow, Guangxi province, some 200 miles upstream from Canton on the West River. [The seminary was founded by A.B. Simpson, who heard a call to go to Guangxi province.] He heard that Y.T. had a desire to attend the Union Seminary at Canton, and said, "I don't know how good Union Seminary is, but spiritually I feel I grew while attending Alliance. I learned quite a lot." This remark crucially impacted Y.T.'s own destiny. So he was looking for opportunities to listen to the teachings by the professors at Alliance. And then came one of them to Hong Kong, the Rev. Wong YuenSo.

      Rev. Y.S. Wong came in 1927 Chinese New Year's Eve, being invited by the union of Hong Kong churches. He preached for two days at HK Rhenish Church. Y.T. remembered how Y.S.Wong introduced himself on the pulpit: "I have lived mostly in Wuchow, where I see more trees than people." So he had little interests in latest fads and political winds. Then he preached: "Too many Christians in the churches today, never shed a drop of tear for his own sins . . . " He expounded on it with much words, and with deep feelings appealed to everyone to go home and write down all their sins, then confess them.

      Wow, that night Y.T. went home and wrote down all his sins. Over 10 items they were. He then confessed them to God, one by one, and then went to bed. In his sleep he would remember more sins, and got up to confess more, and this he did several times in the night. Afterwards he was reminded of 1st John 1:9, that he had now confessed his sins, God is faithful and just and will forgive his sins and cleanse all his unrighteousness. So that means he is saved.! [Later on he understood that one is saved not by the act of confessing sins, but by faith in Jesus who bore our sins in His death.] So it took years of seeking before he was sure of his personal salvation. It was a painful journey.

      After the meeting Rev. Y.S.Wong walked down the Western Street with Y.T. The streets were bustling with lamps and noisy folks buying and selling stuff to celebrate Chinese New Year, but Rev. Wong had absolutely no interest in such, except to buy some food for his breakfast. He spent his time chatting with Y.T., encouraging him not to read all Christian books, but selectively read "Morning Light Magazine", "Magazine for Christians", and E.M.Bound's book Power through Prayer.

      Later on in summer that year, 1927, Y.T. was 20 years old. There was the first Revival Meetings offered by the Hong Kong churches union, and Rev. Wong YuenSo and Rev. Ching ManHay and Leland Wang were among the speakers. One night Leland Wang preached, and Y.S.Wong was chairman. At the end of the meeting Wang called for people to come upfront to confess their sins. Y.S.Wong himself, came to his old mother and said, "Mother, I have a sin to confess to you." His mother was surprised, "What do you have to confess?" He said, "For years I have neglected to share with you the gospel of the grace of God. I need your forgiveness." He set an example of humility, not to put up a show.

      There were other famous speakers too, such as missionary Robert Jaffray, Zhao LiuTang, Ms Luo ShengAi.

      The spiritual revival actually started off in Shaghai and Fuchow southward, since 1924, sweeping through south China. [North China already had spiritualy revivals via Jonathan Goforth during the 1910's. So the Pastor Wong OiTong of the HK Rhenish Church during a trip to Shanghai brought back some booklets he got there, to give to friends and relatives and church members. He gave two copies to Y.T.'s father, Mr YeeDoong. Once was Guidelines to Personal Devotions, compiled by Watchman Nee which talked about the trichotomy of human soul, spirit, and body, and how to recognize Satan's work attacking our souls. Another book was Watchman Nee's The Messenger of the Cross, which talks of personal disciplines in life, and it has a list of books on sale by Christian bookshop at Shanghai. Y.T.Woo was so thirsty in spirit he ordered several books. Two among those were "Can one be saved through good works alone?" and "Assurances of Personal Salvation". Reading those helped him to be thoroughly convinced that he was already saved. So he was so filled with zealousness he ordered many gospel tracts and gave to everybody. He wanted to grab everybody on the street and tell them the immeasurable joy of knowing one is saved by Jesus' blood.

      So Y.T. Woo had spiritual revival at age 20, year 1927.