But when asked about her worries since moving to Worthington in 2006, Cheng’s sly sense of humor reveals itself.
“I’m scared of the snow,” Cheng said; a native Cantonese speaker, she was aided in a recent interview by her grandson Chris Lee.
“I’d rather live in Sacramento because there’s no snow there.”
Even considering California’s potential for earthquakes and wildfires, Cheng shakes her head and admits Minnesota’s icy winters stoke her preference for warmer climates that are reminiscent of Guangzhou, the southern China city of over 14 million she called home for over 60 years.
“California has fires, yes — but there’s still no snow,” she grins.
While Cheng remains wary of mid-winter slip-and-falls, she is delighted to be at home in southwest Minnesota, close to the family she cherishes.
Cheng, who will celebrate her 77th birthday this fall, was born in 1943 amidst a great period of turmoil in China.
Chiang Kai-shek led Cheng’s homeland until civil war drove him to Taiwan, and Communist hard-liner Mao Zedong took over in 1949.
“I am the oldest of seven children,” said Cheng.
She had no formal education during childhood, instead being tasked with numerous household duties — cooking, laundry and helping care for her six younger siblings.
When Cheng was 16, she began working at a factory that packaged medical needles. In the evenings she attended night school. She was later employed at a factory that packaged furniture, ultimately logging over 20 years in factory jobs.
At 24, Cheng married the 25-year-old Yuanyong Li, whom she had met eight years earlier; it took years for them to earn enough money to marry. The couple raised two children, daughter Mabel Lee (co-owner of Worthington’s Panda House restaurant with her husband David) and son Weiquan Li.
Around the time Mabel started high school, Cheng and Yuanyong Li left factory labor behind and opened a small convenience store. Subsequently, they operated a food stand that offered menu items such as rice porridge, noodles and stir-fried snails.
After Mabel married David and emigrated to the United States, the elder couple had the chance to visit Worthington on at least two occasions in the early 2000s. They liked what they experienced, and they loved spending time with their youngest grandson, Chris, who was born in the fall of 2000, and older step-grandson Robert, David’s child from a previous marriage.
In 2006, they were able to move to Worthington. They worked at Panda House and initially lived with the Lees until they could purchase a home of their own in central Worthington.
“I worked eight hours a day, six days a week,” said Cheng, whose specialty restaurant skills were wrapping wontons and egg rolls and chopping vegetables.
Cheng continued working full-time at Panda House until April 2020, when the restaurant temporarily closed due to COVID-19 business slowdowns.
Once settled in Worthington, Cheng and Yuanyong managed annual trips to China, mostly to visit friends and receive medical care. As they were not yet U.S. citizens, it was more cost-effective for them to obtain their necessary medications and undergo checkups in China than locally.
Sadly, Yuanyong died in 2013 during the couple’s annual medical trek, shortly after being diagnosed with late-stage colon cancer.
Following Yuanyong’s death, Cheng redoubled her efforts to learn English and gain U.S. citizenship (she had previously attended English language and citizenship classes within District 518’s Community Education programs).
Cheng appreciated her teachers’ patience and worked diligently, but conquering the citizenship exam at her age was a terrific challenge. Ultimately, she became a U.S. citizen in 2017, and she relishes being a full-fledged American.
Growing up in the People’s Republic of China was tough, Cheng recalls.
“We usually didn’t have enough food,” she said, explaining that it was rationed.
For example, Cheng’s family of nine was allowed a half-pound of rice per day, and they could buy a mere half-pound of pork each month.
“If we wanted chicken to eat, we had to buy baby chicks and raise them ourselves to get meat,” she said.
But persistent hunger paled in comparison to the dangers of challenging government practices, however.
“People were executed for saying anything critical about the government,” she said, her typical smile notably absent.
“Here, you can protest without fear of being executed,” she stated simply.
Cheng volunteered that by 1995, when Jiang Xemin had been in charge of the country for a couple of years, conditions were improving somewhat and food was more readily available.
“But here, there is freedom of speech, and in China, free speech is suppressed,” she said.
Cheng surrounds herself with bright splashes of red décor, an altar to the patron saint of poor people, family photos and useful items that figure in her favorite pastimes — cooking, sewing and tailoring her own clothes, and tidying the house she now shares with her son Weiquan, a Panda House employee.
She adores plants and takes particular pleasure in a healthy green specimen, roughly 14 inches tall, that she has nurtured since purchasing it in Chicago a few years ago.
“I love flowers,” Cheng professed with a smile, “and when I go outside in the morning to water my plants, the neighbors are nice and always say hello.
“This is a friendly neighborhood.”
Cheng is constantly striving to improve her English skills. She employs Google Translate and instructional books in that quest.
Since fully retiring only a few months ago, Cheng has relished having extra time and flexibility for the first extended period in her life.
“I can take naps whenever I want,” she beamed, “and cook or clean; I don’t have to rush to follow a schedule. ”
She also enjoys sitting in the sun, mentioning that the warmth soothes her aching joints.
Above all, Cheng takes pride in her extended family, which besides Mabel, David and Weiquan includes three grandchildren: Robert, a 2005 Worthington High School graduate who is now a senior supply chain financial analyst at Target’s corporate headquarters in the Twin Cities; Chris, a 2019 WHS graduate who is studying computer science at the University of Minnesota; and Chloe Li, also a 2019 WHS graduate pursuing an economics degree at Minnesota State University, Mankato.
Cheng’s goals include attending grandson Robert’s wedding in 2021, and she would love the chance to welcome a great-grandchild.
This determined, hard-working and brave grandmother spent a lifetime sacrificing for her family.
Cheng has earned the right to smell her roses and bask in Minnesota’s summer sun.
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