My Chinese Grandfather

Surrounded by the Chinese in Macau

I dunno about you, but my family never celebrates the Chinese New Year, despite us having authentic Chinese roots. Our heritage traces back to my great-great-grandfather Lim Chuan Juna who as a teen left China during the 1800's to try his luck in Mindanao. I found out that he's way way cooler than I thought. He started out as a pearl diver and fisherman in Jolo and later made a living trading pearls. Comparing him to myself -- he easily beats my web development profession 10 to 1 on the awesomeness scale. I mean come on, he owned practically all of Davao City when he got here. He owned ranches, coconut plantations and hectares upon hectares of useless real estate LOL. He was such a big rockstar that he changed his name to Francisco Villa-Abrille. Ok. But he was a nice guy at the same time, coz he freakin' gave away most of the land and left us with nothing! Just kidding. He left us a good amount of commercial land but my family thought that by selling them they were actually being shrewd businessmen.



*Ducks* Yes gramps, they sold everything!

I feel bad though because only 1/16 of gramps is left inside of me. I'm sure that had we met, we'd get along pretty darn well. We're sooooo similar. We're both goodlooking (as proven by the pics above), athletic (I'm a gym bunny, he dived for pearls for crying out loud), enterprising (I make money online, lots of it; He was just a plain filthy rich bastard). If I had a chance to meet someone who's dead, he'd be the first person on my list of most desired dead people to meet. Ok, please don't show up in my room without prior warning!

To my gramps: I apologize for not caring about your country of origin's excuse for a New Year. The non-Chinese one was more exciting.

Gong Hei Fat Choy!

Cei Tenks Bai!