Lim Mee Koo was born in 1924 in Penang, Malaysia, the eldest of four sisters and one brother. 

Her father, Lim Ah Lee, worked as a chauffeur for a Chinese doctor from Fuzhou, China. Ah Lee also came from Fuzhou, speaking Fuzhounese — a dialect distinct from the Hing Hwa and Hokkien dialects commonly spoken among the Chinese in Malaysia — and so grew a close relationship with the doctor through their shared origins in China.

The doctor came to treat Mee Koo as a daughter, in addition to having a daughter of his own around the same age. In 1933, when the doctor made the decision to return with his family to China, he suggested to Ah Lim to bring Mee Koo and her younger brother, Chui Seng, back to Fuzhou, so they could attend Catholic secondary school. He was a generous man, offering to pay their tuition and house them. 

And so Mee Koo and Chui Seng went to live and study in China. There they received an education, as well as exposure to the Bible and Catholicism. Mee Koo was quite close with the doctor’s daughter, who later became a surgeon in China.

With the Japanese invasion and occupation of China, the doctor decided to send back to Malaya, due to the risk and uncertainty from the conflict. 

Mee Koo did not finish high school, though she was a diligent student, wrote very beautiful Chinese characters, and was quite an intelligent woman. 

Japan invaded Malaya on December 8th, 1941, landing on the beach of Kota Bharu just before their attack on Pearl Harbor. They quickly captured the entire Malay peninsula and Singapore without much resistance from the British. Given the subsequent Japanese occupation of Malaya, my grandfather was eager to marry my mother off, fearful of what the Japanese Imperial Army could do to his unmarried daughter. 

Ong Choo Boon, was a small business owner working around Kelantan & Trengganu in the early 1940's. He and his business partner ran a spare parts business in Southern Thailand, Su-Ngai Kolok, trading between Thailand and Malaya. Choo Boon spoke fluent Thai and had Thai residency. The business was a risky one, effectively smuggling parts to the Chinese in Malaysia.

Choo Boon asked to marry Mee Koo, through arrangement and the permission of her father. Her father agreed, under the condition that they would settle in Kelantan or Trengganu Malaysia, not to settle in Thailand.

Through these arrangements, Ong Choo Boon and Lim Mee Koo were married in 1943, and thus began their family. In 1944 they had a son Kok Chom, a daughter Mai Liam in 1947, another son Kuo Liang in 1949, and a daughter Mei Ping in 1951.

The spare parts business came to an unfortunate end. Choo Boon was unable to be present at a deal happening across the border in Su-Ngai Kolok. His partner, a Thai military government worker, absconded with the entirety of the consignment and disappeared, most likely to Bangkok. The value of the consignment amounted to Choo Boon’s life savings.

And so, Choo Boon moved the family to Jerteh, a much smaller town in Teregganu, where he started over. He was quite the handyman, and set up a bicycle repair shop and battery charging business, sustaining the family. The Ongs were the first household in Jerteh to have electricity supplied by a generator. 

Choo Boon sought to develop a closer relationship with his second cousin, a successful business man known as the “King of Pepper”. In those frontier days of Chinese immigrants in Malaya, business disputes, jealousy, and violent confrontation were common. In a sort of territorial conflict sparked by my father’s attempts to grow closer with the “King”, a gang of Chinese Hing Hwa thugs came to his home and assaulted him, beating and emasculating him in front of my mother and aunt. The assault resulted in severe organ damage from which he never recovered.

Ong Choo Boon passed away in 1954 at age 37, a result of his injuries and spleen failure. He was buried in Hock Leong San (福 龙山), a Chinese cemetery at the outskirts of Kota Bharu, Kelantan. 

Kuo Liang was five years old at the time, the only memories lingering to this day being a father touching his son’s face, by his bedside. Choo Boon told his Mee Koo to take good care of Kuo Liang, as for some reason he felt that his son’s health was poor, or perhaps driven by desire for the only son to carry on the family name. Kuo Liang recalls the coffin his father lay in, and trying to climb out of his auntie’s arms into it to be with his father.

“After my father’s death, I went to live with my aunt (Lim Moi Sim) and my cousin (Yeek Yin, or Yin) in Kota Bharu until I was ready to go to primary school. 

My cousin Ah Pang was born in 1956 to Moi Sim. 

Sometime in 1958, the family moved to Jerteh and all of us lived under one roof at the home my father established at No. 8, Main Road. 

My mother, aunties Moi Sim, Moi Eng, my sisters Mei Liam, Mei Ping, and my cousins Yeek Yin & Ah Pang. My grandfather and grandmother also lived with us. All eight of us lived in a two story house. On the ground floor, my mother ran a sundry goods business, gradually phasing out the bicycle repair/battery charging business.  In the back of the shop, my aunt set up a hair salon. 

The whole family slept upstairs in one room. In those days we used kerosene lanterns; I was afraid of the dark, and always wanted to sleep with my grandmother nearby, often pleading with her to come upstairs with me at bedtime, since I was afraid to sleep alone. Life was simple, playing ping pong, soccer with bare feet, riding bicycles to school, swimming in the river that flowed through the back of our house. I once nearly drowned once swimming in the river, but mother never found out about that.

I went to a Chinese Primary school called Chung Hwa 小学校. There I studied and became fluent in Mandarin, Malay, and English. For six years, most classes were taught in Mandarin. Later I went to one year of middle school in Kota Bharu, named Chung Hwa Middle School, boarding at my Aunt Moi Kim & her husband Yew Hock Teck's, who also ran a sundry goods store out of their house. They had a son named Yew Tin that came to study engineering in the U.S. Last I knew, he worked for Lattice Semiconductors and lived with his family in San Jose, California. 

After just a year of Chinese Middle School in Kota Baru, I was quite home sick, and my mother brought me back home to Jerteh to continue Middle School education at Tengku Mahmud Secondary School. For three years (From 1 - 3), I studied most subjects like history, geography, math and Science in English and of course Bahasa Malaysia which is the Malay language. So growing up I learned Chinese, Malay, and a bit of English. 

From Form 4 and 5, my mother sent me away to the western island of Penang to attend secondary school. I graduated Highschool in Georgetown Penang 1967 and returned to Jerteh, applying to various institutions like Technical College and even applied to RMAF (Royal Malaysian Air Force) to attempt becoming a Flight officer. My mom discouraged me from joining the military. I applied and was accepted into a two year teachers training college in Johor Bahru from 1969 to 1970. My first teaching post was Seneng, Bachok in Kelantan, a rural village primary school. For the next seven years I would teach in and around the area of my childhood, Kelantan and Trennganu. I quit teaching and in January 1977, I came to the USA to pursue higher education. 

I studied Business at University of Wisconsin Stevens Point. There, I first met Anita and later developed into a close relationship. After Bachelor's Degree graduation in May 1979, I went on to Northern Illinois University for my MBA. Anita followed me to NIU a semester later to study MBA as well. I got my MBA in December 1980 and was hired by AM International based in Mt. Prospect. I moved to Gatehouse apartments in early 1981 to work for the company. Anita graduated a semester later and decided to go back to Hong Kong.

Later in December 1981, I went to Hong Kong to marry Anita. We got married on December 26 1981. We held 3 receptions altogether, one in Hong Kong, one in Jerteh and one in Kota Bharu. After this whirlwind of travels and wedding reception and time to come back to work, I got into Visa issues and was twice rejected by the US embassy to be allowed back to the US. Somehow AM International interceded and helped secure my reentry back to the US. We had to travel to Toronto, Canada and by way of Windsor, travelled back to Arlington Heights, IL after getting Visa approval at the US embassy in Toronto, Canada. 

Anita left the US to go back to Hong Kong to wrap up her job and moved back to be with me the summer of 1982. That's the beginning of Dan and Anita Ong’s life and family in the United States. Fast forward 43 years later, Jon Ong & Cynthia Gardea, Janice and Chas Tyler, Jeffrey Ong and Nao Mizuno, 4 grandchildren, Xiaomara, Kaixin, Sydney & Remi are our family network in the USA. What a country!”