Our People

Katherine Liang Chew

author [Chinese, English]

Katherine Liang Chew (KLC, 1926-2023) was born and grew up in Bai Se, Guanxi Province, China. When she was eleven, she and her younger brother were sent “up country” to Chongqing, Sichuan province to attend middle and high school because Japanese forces were bombing many cities in southern China. Growing up in Guanxi, she spoke Cantonese, but rapidly learned Mandarin, the standard national language, during her school years in Sichuan. Some of the colloquialisms used in her writing of Little Pig are characteristic of Sichuan speech. 

Following World War II, she met Frank Chew, a Chinese American serving in the US Army in China as a liason between the Army and the local civilian population. They were married in 1946, and she immigrated to the US in 1947 as one of many thousands of “war brides”, spouses of US military personnel who came to the USA after the war. Because of the Chinese Exclusion Act (1882) and its repeal (Magnuson Act 1943), the Chinese (and later other Asians including Japanese) were the largest beneficiaries of this immigration policy change. In 2011, the US Congress, with wide bipartisan support, voted a resolution to apologize for the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act.

KLC became a reference librarian and an interpreter. But she continued to practice her Chinese by translating and retelling folk tales and myths. When the People’s Republic of China introduced simplified characters and hanyu pinyin to the western world in the late 1970s, she became an early adopter of a system that is now widely used.

During early years of retirement, she enrolled in Emeritus Professor Doug Muir’s Irvine Valley College Emeritus Creative Writing Class. She and the late Dr. Muir became good friends. She is grateful for all she learned from him and her classmates over the years.

Francie Chew

principal editor, illustrator

Francie (Frances Sze-Ling Chew) painted watercolors and learned silkscreen while making posters in college. Using transparent oil-based silkscreen inks, she “recreated” watercolor paintings she did. She then made new pictures that evolved as she worked directly in the silkscreen printing process, creating resists (the part that shapes how ink is applied to the paper) for each layer after seeing how the previous layer looked. The result was luminous color silkscreens that resemble water colors. She now works with an iPad and Apple pencil in Tayasui Sketches Pro, which similarly uses layers.

A retired teacher and ecologist working at the intersection of insect and plant biology, Francie mentored many students. She participated in field courses led by Tufts University professor Colin Orians in Costa Rica, where she met Leda Muñoz Orians, an ecologist who worked at La Selva Biological Station, and our translator for the Spanish-English version. In 2010 she met Đoàn Hương Mai, an exchange professor who visited Tufts from Hanoi University of Science, Vietnam National University. In 2013 she taught at VNU as an exchange professor. Mai is the translator for our Vietnamese-English version.

Francie has also taught co-counseling for years. She serves as a reference person for co-counselors who are overseas Chinese and/or Southeast Asian heritage.

Richard Bryan

principal producer

Richard Bryan grew up in Connecticut, Minnesota, New Mexico, Brisbane (Australia), Maryland, and Masschusetts as his geologist father’s jobs took the family to many places. He became a musician (saxophone and clarinet, bass clarinet), electronics engineer working on electronic musical instruments, and a multihull sailor. This latter endeavor led to the compass rose being one of the inspirations for the logo he designed. He works in Affinity Photo, Affinity Publisher, and Affinity Designer on Macintosh computers.

Sally Feng

editor [Chinese, English]

Sally Feng was born during World War II in Hunan, China. She lived in Japan and Taiwan before immigrating to the USA in 1965.  Languages have always fascinated her. In retirement in southern California, she spends her time in promoting multicultural exchange, practicing Chinese calligraphy, participating in small-group discussions, and learning to play the harmonica.

 Wei Li

editor [Chinese], webmaster

Wei Li was born in Shandong, China. Her native language is mandarin Chinese. She came to the U.S. in 1999 to attend graduate school at Tufts University, where she met Francie Chew. She is now a Chinese medicine practitioner, and health and wellness coach.

Leda Muñoz Orians

translator [Spanish, English]

Leda Muñoz Orians was born in Costa Rica, where she studied at the University of Costa Rica and became a biologist. Since childhood, Leda dreamed of learning English. Now she translates stories and works as a medical interpreter in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

 Đoàn Hương Mai

translator [Vietnamese, English]

Đoàn Hương Mai was born and grew up in Hanoi, Vietnam. An ecologist, she is the head of the Department of Ecology, Hanoi University of Science, Vietnam National University. In 2010, she came to Tufts University as a visiting scholar, and in 2013, she hosted Francie Chew as a visiting scholar at HUS-VNU. Mai loves children and is very happy to participate in this multi-lingual project.

Fe Mikey Damian

translator [Tagalog, English]

Fe Mikey Damian was born and raised in the Philippines. She immigrated to the USA where she now lives in San Francisco. She works as part of a medical team in pediatrics and adolescent medicine at University of California San Francisco. One member of that team knew Francie in college. When these college friends re-connected during the pandemic year, thanks to this mutual friend, Fe Mikey and Francie were introduced to each other.

Agnès Liang

translator [French, English]

Agnès Liang was born and raised in France and is an advertising and medical illustrator. The niece of Katherine Liang Chew and cousin to Francie Chew, she now lives in Paris.

Astrid Caldas

translator [Portuguese, English]

Astrid Caldas was born and raised in Brazil, where she was a university professor before immigrating to the USA. A biologist and climate scientist, she works with the climate science team at the Union of Concerned Scientists. She now lives in Bethesda, Maryland. [photo credit: Union of Concerned Scientists]

Park Hae-Ok

translator [Korean, English]

Park Hae-Ok was born and raised in ChungJu city, South Korea. She attended the Seoul Institute of the Arts where she majored in Literary Creation. She now works as a kindergarten teacher.