Posted on: Friday, August 27, 2004
Through good times and bad, Fong was inspiration to many
| • | Hundreds pay respects to Fong at Capitol rites |
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By Lynda Arakawa
Advertiser Capitol Bureau
Hunnie Yee worked for Hiram Fong for more than 40 years and likely knew him as well as anyone outside his family could.
But even as she watched people gather at the State Capitol for last night's memorial ceremonies, she had yet to accept that he was gone.
"I just don't feel that he has left us yet," she said. "I still feel he'll be coming to the office."
Yee has not closed up Fong's office at Finance Factors, the company Fong helped found in 1952. She leaves his light on, although her co-workers wonder why.
"I said, 'Well, I just feel it lights his way back to the office.' Until, well, I don't know. I guess after today or tomorrow I'll just stop it."
Yee, 79, worked for Fong "from way back; I just wore different hats." Her work with him included serving as his secretary at Finance Factors, running his local campaign office and managing his local U.S. Senate office.
Fong always had time for everyone, Yee said.
"Whether he can help them or not, he was willing to listen to them," she said. "He never said no. He just always felt that there must be something he could do to help them."
The day before he died she visited him at his home to finalize some matters.
"He was sitting up and having his lunch," she said. "I thought he looked very well then. I just didn't expect him to leave us that next day."
Connie Newman worked for Fong as an office manager for The Oceania, a Chinese-style showboat restaurant on Ho-nolulu's waterfront that ended up bankrupt. Fong was inspiring, kind, humble and "very sweet regardless of the adversity that was going on," she said.
"He was going through a lot but yet he was always very encouraging to everyone. Always," Newman said. "You would never know the weight that was upon him."
His influence and widespread connections spanned generations and even those who did not know him well made time to pay their respects.
Mary Lou Kobayashi knew Fong through her late father, Ray Yuen, who worked for Fong in Washington, D.C., in the 1970s.
"I'm here because my father just respected Senator Fong," she said. "I got to shake his hand once when I went to visit. I do remember his smile."
Many admired his life overcoming adversity: a poor Kalihi kid who rose to become a U.S. senator but remained true to the Islands that produced him.
"I think that one thing that people admire about Senator Fong was that he came from humble beginnings in Hawai'i and he did good and he never forgot the people of Hawai'i," Kobayashi said.
In many ways, his success was theirs.
"Who would have ever thought," Kobayashi said of Fong, the first elected Asian-American senator. "That's quite an accomplishment. We do take it for granted these days, but in those days, that was quite an accomplishment."
Reach Lynda Arakawa at larakawa@honoluluadvertiser.com or at 525-8070.
