May 5: Thursday gathering dinner

The Wah Yan Alumni Association of Southern California held its May 2005 meeting at the Holiday Cafe in Monterery Park. Close to a dozen alumni attended, including a new member Michael Ngan, Yiu Cheung ('67). He and Vincent Lee, Wo Sang, also from the class of 67, met again for the first time after last bumping into each other in a supermarket somewhere in Pasadena over 15 years ago.

For the evening program, David Yuen '59 gave a talk on ancient Chinese prohecies, principally from the book Tui-Bei Tu (Back-Pushing Diagrams) written in the Tang Dynasty. The book consists of 64 prophecies about China, each derived from one of the 64 hexagrams from the ancient Book of I Ching (the Book of Change). Of special interest are prophecies 38 to 45 as shown in the attached diagrams. For example, prophecy 39 appears to describe the Sino-Japanese war, while prophecy 40 appears to refer to Communist China under the rule of the Gang of Four and subsequently Mr. Deng Xiao-Ping. Furthermore, according to David’s interpretation, prophecies 41-45 could be describing the current complex relationships and conflicts between China, Taiwan, Japan, and the United States. Those who are interested in obtaining additional information on this subject should contact David Yuen.

In addition to being a scholar on the subject, David also alluded to the possibility of using these prophecies to our advantage, such as real estate investment in China. On this point, Gavin Lam made some interesting observations about future economic trends in China leading up to and beyond the 2008 Olympics. Other related topics that stirred up lively discussions were the Catholic papacy, Mary Magdalene and the role of women in Christian ministries, Biblical prophecies, and Armageddon. The meeting ended on a lighter note with a delicious serving of snow mushroom “tong shui”.

Event Photos

Special thanks to Michael Ngan for providing the pictures and minute of the meeting.