My Neighbor Across The Hall

photo / Candance diCalvo / U of P  Almanac

Some years ago, while renting a studio apartment

on a lower floor, my neighbors across the hall were a

dignified elderly Chinese gentleman and his wife.

At first, we would nod to each other while waiting 

for elevators. Then one day the old Gentleman had a 
large envelope bearing big colorful foreign stamps. 
I asked if they were Chinese. He said they were Russian. 

I told him I had been to Russia some years before

and had family there. Next thing I knew, the Russian

stamps on their envelope had been slid under my door.

A gift from my new friend.

I learned from others, that the Gentleman was 

a renowned Emeritus Professor retired from the 

University of Pennsylvania. We all found out

just how renowned, when the President of

China at that time, who was in the US on a

state visit, arranged to stop in to see my special

neighbor and his wife. He was a former student
of the old Professor. That afternoon this building 
was cordoned off and crawling with Secret Service 
and Chinese security agents. Everyone had to

stay wherever they were, inside or outside for the

duration. 

Before coming to America, I heard that the Professor 
had been an aide to General Chaing Kai Shek.

And once I asked him where he was when WWII

ended. He told me Shanghai. 

By now when we met in the hall by the elevator

or in the lobby, me going for mail, he reading his

Chinese newspaper, he would smile, sometimes 

wink and with a twinkle in his eye, tap his cheek 
for a peck.

I was always happy to comply.

In the end, the old couple's children moved them

out west, closer to their homes and families.

Today, thinking about him and his sweet quietly 
smiling wife.
Wondering if there might be a picture and further
information online, I discovered both. 
And that he had passed away at 99 in September 2002.


http://www.upenn.edu/almanac/v49/n05/deaths.html

http://www.upenn.edu/pennnews/current/node/960