Rob Cheng's Blog

My Grandmother – The Bridge Player


My grandmother died on September 22, 2010 in Los Angeles, CA. She was 107 years old. She was the most amazing person that I know, and perhaps will ever know. Now that she is gone, I have lots of thoughts about how my grandmother shaped my life and I also have lots of stuff on my computer about my grandmother.

This is the first installment. My grandmother was an avid bridge player. Furthermore, everyone in my family is an avid bridge player. In my family, there are three sons, and my parents. The highest level that a bridge player can achieve in competition is called Life Master. Both my parents and both of my brothers have achieved Life Master. I guess I am the black sheep of the family as far as bridge goes, although I know the basic rules so I can participate.

My grandmother loved to play bridge too. She never played bridge competitively but we would always play in every family gathering since there was never a shortage of players. My grandmother played well into her early hundreds. In her neighborhood, she organized a weekly bridge game when she was in her 90’s. When she was 101, she abruptly stopped playing because she said it would make her head explode.

For those that don’t know, bridge is a very difficult card game. It takes a good memory and a good grasp of numbers and of course the 52 card deck. My grandmother had all of those skills and it is truly a marvel that she could play bridge to such an advanced age.

I took this video in 2002 because I was excited about digital video. The video quality is only so so, but the mere fact that I can pull this video from my hard drive and upload it to YouTube is why I love digital technology. Check out my grandmother at 99 years old playing bridge with me and my two parents in Los Ángeles CA.

100th Birthday Speech

My grandmother is an incredible woman! She turned 100 years old on June 6, 2003 and we had a very nice celebration for her on Sunday June 8 in Los Angeles. She was involved in every detail of the party including the restaurant, the menu, the attendees, and the seating chart.

I hope that I am so active if I ever make it to 100. Most importantly, she wrote her speech for the party. Here is the speech in its entirety. Read More

Theodore Chen Memorial

I’ve been working on a rather special place on my web site for a special person. I am using a feature called WordPress pages, which unlike a blog is not updated. If you look at the upper navigation bar, you will see a special place to memorialize the life of my grandfather.

The collection was made by scanning numerous photos that I found in a shoe box after my grandfather passed away. In addition, I also found a floppy disk which had some interesting facts about his life.
A truly remarkable man.

The Chen Fellowship

My grandparents created the Chen Fellowship in order to help Chinese students study as USC into perpetuity. After my grandfather passed away in 1991, my grandmother has personally been managing the Chen Fellowship herself. Recently when looking through my things, I found this letter sent by my grandmother while I was working in South Dakota at Gateway. At the time she wrote this letter, she was 93 years old. It is amazing how lucid and clear she was at the age. Read More

Letter from my Grandmother

My grandmother is the most incredible person that I know. As of this writing, she is now 104 years old, and she was close to 90 when she wrote this letter. She was always trying to set me up with some girl. I hope that I am still doing matchmaking when I am 90 years old. Read More