Wednesday, December 2, 1998

Relatives say that all sorts of emotions are stirred. Guilt mixes with joy as they consider their financial success and personal liberty, which were unattainable for the older generations. If the U.S. residents travel to retrieve the remains, they can confront painful and happy memories.
      "I finally can do something for them so they can rest in peace. So I feel good about that," said Yook Chew Tong, who, after escaping to Hong Kong, immigrated to Los Angeles in the 1950s.
      "It's kind of symbolic and very reassuring," said Alice Kim, a junior at Cerritos High School. "I never thought I'd meet my grandfather. And it's very comforting to know my grandfather and grandmother are together."
      Evelyn Lee, a 52-year-old aerospace engineer from South Pasadena, recalled similar emotions during a trip to China two years ago to retrieve remains of maternal grandparents.
      "For my children, it's a sense of history. It's continuity," Lee said. "Now that they've seen China, they think: 'Oh my God, we could have been born there.' It's incredible for them to see the opportunities we have here versus what they don't have in China."
      Her mother and aunts and uncles, a generation who emigrated from a poor village, lived to see grandchildren graduate from Ivy League universities. So the transfer "brought closure for a lot of them," Lee said.