The Fung Genealogy Project

My family does our big Christmas gettogether on Christmas Eve, which means that Christmas Day usually finds us bored and in need of something to do. This year, I decided to get my family to start a project I've long wanted to do: build the family tree.

So I started an account on Ancestry.com, and our entire gang-- me, my brother, my parents, a bunch of my aunts, uncles and cousins-- gathered around as I input all of our names and birthdates into the system. Upon discovering that we can pull up records like marriage and divorce indexes, the older folks began outpouring family dramas from the past. (A less light-hearted version of Fung My Life could document stories of adultery, political betrayal, mental illness, all sorts of juicy stuff.) My dad then became particularly preoccupied with digging up dirt on his cousin's ex-husband from the 1970s.

Dad: Oh! See if you can find anything on Aunt G's husband, ah-Bob.

Me: Who was Bob?

Dad: He was a bad, bad man. I remember when Aunt G was still in Hong Kong and married to her first husband, she somehow met Bob. So she had an affair with Bob and then left to the US with him. Later, she sent for her three kids and her husband, and they came to the US. So her husband thought she wanted to reconcile, but when he got there, he found that Bob was living with her. But the real bad thing is that Bob was abusive to the kids.

Me: That's terrible. So did she leave him?

Dad: No! He left her! He went back to Hong Kong to rekindle a romance with a previous girlfriend. He always tried to swindle rich women. But that woman had already married some rich guy so she told him to fuck off.

Me: Damn. He was a bad man.

Dad: Yeah, very bad. And we all thought G was stupid to go with him. But Bob was evil. Evil Bob.

Me: So what do you want me to find out?

Dad: Find out if they ever got divorced! And if he ever got remarried!

Me: Was his official name Bob or Robert? Or some Chinese name?

Dad: Oh, I don't know. He's just Bob. Evil Bob.


Collectively, we were able to locate records confirming that he and my aunt G had indeed divorced. But even with knowing the man's full name, the older folks continue to use the moniker my dad coined in recalling this particular family drama: "Where does Evil Bob live now?" "I heard Evil Bob got a stroke a few years ago." "I wonder if Evil Bob got much of G's money." "I remember Evil Bob was at my wedding."

Evil Bob has become a sort of icon in the family history. He may need his own blog. EvilBob.blogspot.com.