Class
Reunion Report 
20-Year Anniversary of Class 1979
Dear Class79 Friends,
July 3rd was one of those “Tsinghua mountain-cutting days”
all over again. Only this time it was at a grander scale, with spouses
who have always been curious about what those Tsinghua nerds look
like, kids who can’t care less enough about whatever damn
school their parents went, and near-by residents wondering where
the hell these Chinese speaking geeks coming from, with out-of-date
karaoke machine and aluminum trays with strange smelling dripping
liquids.
We had fun, didn’t we? The final head count for our July
3 reunion event was 15,300 adult and children. Oops, it was 153.
But the food was all gone (not as quickly as they were in Tsinghua
Shi Tang, another sign that we are getting old), kids were well
fed with junk food, cheap cartoon videos, poorly inflated balloons,
and old video games that their parents once played when they were
students.
At the event, we finally settled the ages-old question, “who
was the coolest couple on campus.” It was He Yuan and Wang
Danni of the Chemical Engineering Department. And they were not
on drugs even though they were the Chemical major. “It was
true love, starting from sharing an “oil pie”, according
to He Yuan. We believe you, man! For the love story that has withstood
twenty years “wind and rain,” the couple were awarded
a sweat-heard t-shirt pair, with www.tsinghua.net logo them. There
was not a dry eye in the room when the award was given.
The runner-up couple was Li Ling Xiang and Mei Lin, another classmate
couple from Engineering Physics. Ling Xiang was no runner-up on
campus though. She was the collegiate ping-pang champion in Beijing
twenty year ago. Once beaten embarrassedly, some Tsinghua guys are
still thinking about a re-match with her today. Give it up, man,
it isn’t going to happen. When asked about their first time,
both admitted that it happened on the way back to campus from a
3-month Shi Xi in Hubei Province. Yap, as we have suspected for
years.
The following is a list of Tsinghua classmates that also won award
at the event;
Person who flew the longest to come to the event – it was
a tie. Peng Man of Wu Xian Dian who flew from Boston, MA on the
night before, Yang Yi of Chem Eng who flew from New Jersey with
her entire family to join her classmates.
Person who drove the longest to come the event – Xu Bing
of Automation Department who drove from Irvine, CA, about 600 miles
away.
Person who has the most degrees – Qin Zhigang of Automation
Department, BS, MS (3x), Ph.D. We suspect that some of the degrees
are fraudulent.
Person who has had the most jobs – Chen Ying of Wu Xian Dian,
10 jobs. We don’t know if her working there was the cause
of some of those companies went out of business. For example, since
she joined Omnivision last year, the stock has crushed to 1/3 of
where it was 12-mon ago. You should ask Cathy where is her next
job if you want to short stocks.
Person who has the oldest child – Li Qiang of Wu Xian Dian,
who’s son is 17 years old.
Representatives from each department introduced the attendees.
Wu Xian Dian – Ren Yan who introduced four classes, who’s
spouse Yu Jun, another Wu Xian Dian man who quietly stole Ren Yan
away under the eyes of her own classmates. They admitted that an
area of bushes in front of Zhu Lo was their favorite after-dinner
hideout in Tsinghua. We didn’t ask the question of “1st
time”, but we suspected that it wasn’t there, ‘cause
the bushes were not tall enough as we remembered. Wu Lifeng who
introduced another 3 classes. We founded out that both of them cooked
the numbers a little bit, but given the fact that they were not
math major, and possibly failed their math exams at Tsinghua, we
will blame their teachers instead.
Mechanical engineering – Liu Hongwei, the former party secretary
of his class, now a self-declared capitalist wannabe, rumor says
that he is doing some side business while counting hours at Intel
during the day. As we once took for granted, party bosses were not
shy when it comes to women. After Hongwe openly selected classmate
Jin Jian while at Tsinghua, the competition fled quickly. They have
been husband and wife since then.
Chemical Engineering – the largest turn out at the event
goes to Hua Gong (almost the largest, 2nd only to Wu Xian Dian).
Led by former Student Dinning Hall Dance party queen Li Ping, now
a Merrill Lynch broker and mother of 4 (?), and former student Zhao
Fan Pai (Chinese word for hooligans) He Yuan, now biotech entrepreneur
in China but still under the tight leash of wife of twenty-year
Wang Danni, those Chemies were rocking, well, until some of them
twisted their backs. Yap, they are old.
Engineering Physics, Applied Math, Thermo Engineering, Precision
Instrumentation, Computer Science, and Chinese Literature, were
all here at the party. Sorry, we guys wished there were Chinese
Literature major for obvious reason. We heard that our prayer is
finally answered; the Chinese Literature department was officially
opened door last year at Tsinghua.
The net-net was that the event was a smashing success. There were
tons of photos to prove it. We could not pick up a better time for
this party, ‘cause we know some of us will be hit hard by
Alzheimer soon. Not sure if the kids were making friends at the
event. Advice for them is that engineering school is not the best
place to meet girls, unless you take lessons from true pros like
He Yuan, Yu Jun, Liu Hong Wei and Mei Lin.
Ok, what else did I leave out? Oh, the guys and gals who planed
for this event and ran errands for it. They are:
Li Ping (Chem Eng), who sent her man for a long trip so that she
could focus on the preparation work. She was the one who kept making
phone calls to urge everyone to get things done. Now we understand
how she got those high profile people to become her clients. Her
20” TV was the focal point for many kids. She was calmly ordering
male students to move equipment and furniture at the event, which
reminds people what she did to her male classmates twenty years
ago. Her host of the coolest couple was the high point of the evening.
Honestly, without her kicking butts, the reunion event probably
would never get off the ground.
Liu Yu (Mech Eng), who took the order from the now big Tsinghua
boss Song Jun back in March this year to organize the event and
use it as an excuse for a trip to US for some Tsinghua boss. But
Song Jun’s visa was denied because US embassy suspected that
he’s a commy (which he is). Realized that it was too late
to call it off, with harden head-skin, Liu Yu called for a prep
team, which turned out to be mostly consisted of female enthusiasts.
Under the suspicious eye of his wife (who pronounces Tsinghua as
Qing Wo Da Ao), he had to make up stories why there were constant
calls from female callers (she didn’t know that not all of
them are event-prep related though). She got even more suspicious
when once over-heard the word Dang Dai Biao during his phone conversations
with female callers. He thanked the lord for the event to run just
below the budget, even though the model (built on the finance course
he took at business school) showed that the team probably over spent.
In the end, he learned that he better trust his female team members
simply because they had better grades than him at Tsinghua.
Liu Chunling (Automation, not related to Liu Yu), who took her
out-dated karaoke machine from home for use at the event, only to
find out that most of the songs were in Cantonese. Originated, produced
and hosted by her, the election-of-the-most game was fun. Being
a SiChuan girl, she showed how La she could be by insisting each
Tsinghua couple to disclose information of their “first time”.
What about yours, Chunling? The SiChuan food that she transported
from local restaurant Chuan Fu was the not only cheap, but also
authentic.
Wu Lifeng (Wu Xian Dian), who stood-by patiently through those
countless prep meeting really made the difference. He transported
whole bunch of electronic equipment on his Mercedes, and wired the
entire entertainment center at the event. He put together the Old
Photo Show that included many views that are gradually fading away
from our memories. In the end, Wu Xian Dian had the most attending
crowd, many of them were called-in personally by Lifeng.
Ren Yan (Wu Xian Dian), who fiercely defended her lazy classmate-turned-husband
Yu Jun at all the prep meetings for his not showing support for
this event. With a day-job and watching over two children, she was
a big supporter for the event. She bought two tanks of He gas and
balloons for the kids, only to put too much gas into them. Balloons
kept bursting throughout the evening scaring kids and their parents.
We think Ren Yan is a good role model for all Tsinghua wives, and
Yu Jun is a bad one for all Tsinghua husbands.
Liu Hong Wei and Jin Jian (Mech Eng), the husband and wife team
was the mean reason for the success of the event. Together with
their daughter, the three set at the door to sign people in for
three hours. They also bought whole bunch of junk food to satisfy
the kid.
Chen Ying (Wu Xian Dian), Cathy quietly filled in every prep meeting
strategizing for the event. The karaoke speakers were brought in
from her home. The moving of equipments was entirely relied on the
cart provided by her.
Qin Zhigan (Automation), winner of the most degree award at the
event, he brought most of his fellow Automation classmates to the
event. A photo enthusiast, he took over 30 pictures at the event.
Most them are on the web site right now for you to view. See below
information.
He Yuan (Chemical Eng), who was among the first on the prep team
and the last one to come, all the way from Beijing to attend the
event. Coming in directly from airport picked up by his wife of
twenty years Wang Danni, He Yuan brought back not only some Tsinghua
DVD to show at the event, but also some interesting smell from Beijing
(possibly due to not taking shower for 48 hours). Excited seeing
many fellow Chemmy friends, he ran out to purchase some alcoholic
beverage, i.e., no name cheap beer, which probably will cost us
some big fine by SJSU. He planned to eat a big belly meal at the
event and trashed over beer, but quickly surrendered to a combination
of jetlag and early symptom of Alzheimer.
Contact Info
We have compiled a contact info, attached is the firs version.
Please send the updated info and corrections to louie@asiatechventure.com
.
Photo Taken at the event
Many people took photo at the event. We plan to compile them into
a DVD. Please upload them to the following services for viewing;
there are already 32 photos there.
www.shutterfly.com
username: tsinghua.net@gmail.com
password: tsinghua79
Upload your entire photo there; there is no limit on storage space.
Another site was set up, this will keep the original size of the
photo without shrinking them.
http://www.imagestation.com.
id: Tsinghua79
pwd: tsinghua79.
Lastly, it was so nice to see everyone at the event. Thank you all
for coming. Keep in touch. Please exchange ideas on how we may do
another event like this. Now you have the contact info, don’t
hesitate to call and email.
Signoff, the Class79 2004 Reunion Prep Team.
Last Modified by SVTN
Webmaster on August 4, 2004 |
