Jia Kai Chu

Growing up in China, Jia Kai Chu lived an interesting life full of many different experiences. Born in 1933, Chu grew up in a good family and went to school until he joined the army at 17 years old as an entertainer to sing and dance for the soldiers. After spending three years as an entertainer, Chu became a teacher for the army as well. In 1949, Chu’s whole family left China to move to Taiwan because his father was working there, but Chu stayed in Hunan, China for his job with the army.

In 1966, he experienced China’s Cultural Revolution, which was a sociopolitical movement that lasted until 1976. The movement was led by the Chairman of the Communist Party of China, Mao Zedong, to further promote the Communist ideology and rid China of anything pertaining to capitalism. Chu remembers posters and signs about the revolution posted all throughout Hunan and violent riots that would occur every day. During one of these riots, a man broke off the leg of a chair and hit Chu over the head with it.

He left the army when he was 25 years old and married his wife in 1957. They moved to a different area in China and he then began work as a farmer for two years. In August of 1979, Chu and his wife moved to the United States to be with the rest of his family who had already moved here after living in Taiwan. He bought a pizza store and worked there for 12 years to support his family’s new life in the United States. Today, Chu and his wife have lived in the United States for 37 years and have made a new life for themselves. For six years, they moved around different parts of the Bay Area before finally settling at Eskaton Hazel Shirley Manor in El Cerrito, an apartment complex for low-income senior citizens.

When asked what his life is like now living in the United States, Chu said, “My life is very good here. I like living in the United States because I am free to do what I want. Life in China was very hard. I worked hard for my family and everything was more difficult over there.” All of Chu’s family lives in California and he has two grandchildren who will be attending school at The University of California, Berkeley and Harvard University, and one grandchild who is working as a doctor at The University of California, Los Angeles. “I love living here because all of my family is here and they all have successful jobs. Everything with my family is very good and I am very happy. All of my family is in California and even my twin great-grandsons live here. My family comes to visit my wife and I and are always here when there is a celebration such as a birthday or Chinese New Year.”

Chu says that he would never want to move back to China because his life is in the United States now and prefers life in California over life in China. “I don’t like China because there are too many people. If you walk out on the street or go shopping or to the movies or any place, there are always tons of people all the time. I like them but there’s too many of them! The weather in China is also very cold compared to the nice warm weather of California.”