Don Tow's Website

This book tells the experiences of a bi-cultural person growing up and living in China and the U.S.  It is based on selected events of the lives of the author and his parents, as well as his brothers and sisters.  The cultures of China and the U.S. are very much intertwined in the lives of the Tow family because five generations of the greater Tow family have lived part of their lives in China and part of their lives in the U.S. 

The author came to the U.S. at age 13 is especially a mixture of a dragon and an eagle.  He exhibits traits of both, sometimes exhibiting more of one type than the other, and sometimes spontaneously transforming from one type to another, like yin and yang in Taiji.  The book recollects their experiences living through two decades of wars (The Second Sino-Japanese War, World War II, China’s Civil War).

The book recollects the painful experience of the Tow family pulling up roots multiple times to escape from war:  (1) moving from Canton, China to Hong Kong in 1937, (2) from Hong Kong in 1941 to their ancestor village of Taishan near Canton, (3) from Taishan back to Canton when WWII ended in 1945, then (4) from Canton to Hong Kong in 1949 during China’s civil war, and (5) finally immigration to the U.S. in 1955 to a small town in Placerville (also known as Hangtown). 

It describes the heroic task assumed by his older sister Billie Tow Dong when our family was living in their ancestor village Taishan during the Second Sino Japanese War (unfortunately my older sister Billie passed away on 11/25/2025). It recollects the tragedy of losing his oldest brother and the impact it had on his mother emotionally. It also recollects the friendship between his father and his college freshman dormitory roommate, Mr. Harold S. Prescott, a friendship that lasted more than half a century, across thousands of miles of separation across the U.S. and across oceans.

It also recollects the author’s experiences living through the Free Speech Movement of 1963 at the University of California at Berkeley, the Civil Rights Movement, the Third World Movement, and the Anti-Vietnam War Movement in the decade of the 1960s. This decade resulted in many changes in the psyche of Americans, especially among students on American college campuses, as well as in the American society, as well as in other societies worldwide. It expanded their horizon and focus, paying much more attention to the social and economic conditions of their society, as well as the world as a whole.

This seismic change also affected our contemporaries. For example, a friend from the University of California at Berkeley while almost finishing his master degree in engineering in 1970 returned to Hong Kong and initiated a project to start teaching high school courses in a remote part of Hong Kong which at that time did not offer high schools.  His effort resulted in several other students joining that effort. This project lasted several years until a public high school was established in that remote part of Hong Kong, and what happened after that initiative can be found in Chapter 17.                                          

The worldwide Diaoyu Tiao Student Movement was also triggered in 1970 and 1971.  The impact of this movement is still going on, and is just as important now as it was 50+ years ago, because it is tied to the territorial sovereignty and involvement of the U.S. Mutual Defense Treaty with Japan, which is still to be seen how it would be fulfilled. 

This book discusses the many extracurricular activities that the author was involved in throughout his life over more than six decades..  Most of these activities have centered on injustices and atrocities, especially those injustices and atrocities that were experienced by the Chinese that occurred during WWII during the Second Sino-Japanese War.

It describes extracurricular activities that involve organizations like “The New Jersey Alliance for Learning and Preserving the History of WWII in Asia (NJ-ALPHA)” and “Ten Thousand Cries for Justice (10,000 CFJ).” The latter activity involves especially two people:  Tong Zeng (童增) of China and Tamaki Matsuoka of Japan, which is described in Chapter 33 of this book.  Both Tong Zeng and Tamaki Matsuoka have been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize.  Unfortunately, Tong Zeng passed away on October 23, 2025.

The book also describes topics such as “Can the American Dream Be Continued?”, the “South China Sea Dispute,” “Anson Burlingame,” and “U.S.-China Relationship.”

The book is more than just one family’s memoir.  It is about the dynamic transformation and integration of one culture with another culture, which all immigrants undergo to one degree or another.