My dad, Artemio David Wong, was born in Peru, the youngest of three children. He went to the US to attend college in Utah, where he met my mom, Jin Tjie Tjong. My mom was in Utah on vacation from college (she was going to school in Sacramento). They fell in love and got married and they went back to Peru where I was born. My dad's side of the family lives in Lima, Peru; Sacramento, California; Vancouver, Canada; Miami, Florida; New York, New York; and scattered about. It's a fairly big and close knit clan, something I hadn't appreciated until recently. Mom's side of the family lives mostly in Indonesia (where she was born) and Australia. I know much less about her side of the family because she doesn't talk about them much, though my brother and sister have gone with mom to visit her relatives in Australia.

We moved to California when I was 8. At the time my sister (Stephanie) and I didn't mind. We moved to Sacramento where I started school in 2nd grade. My parents opened up a Chinese restaurant in the quiet suburb of Rosemont, near Rancho Cordova (which this year was finally incorporated into a city). Us kids spent a lot of time in the restaurant since we were too young to be in our apartment by ourselves. Eventually we bought a house and then my brother was born (I'm 11 years older than Christopher). Running a restaurant was really a lot of work so my parents sold the place and found other jobs. My dad now works for the Sacramento County as a social welfare supervisor. Mom works for the State of California as a controller (accounting).

Stephanie is two years younger than me. In school I was always the smart one and she was the hard working one. Different methods to the same goal since we both attended UC Berkeley, where she studied Accounting. We fought a lot when we were kids but have grown closer as adults. She worked for Cooper and Lybrand (which then became PriceWaterhouseCoopers) which is one of the big consulting firms in the US (mostly providing accounting services though also all sorts of consulting services). But Steph wanted to do more so a year or so ago she joined a small startup Biotech company called Kosan. She is an Assistant Controller and thinks her job is dull, though it does pay well. Steph wants to do something more interesting like work for a non-profit organization. Steph lives 10 minutes from where I work (and I live about 10 minutes from where she works) in a two-bedroom condominium (an apartment that you own).

My brother Christopher will be starting his 3rd year (or is it 4th) at UC Davis this fall. I guess he's been a bit of a disappointment to my parents because he's never done that well at school. And in fact he's going to complete in five years instead of four, assuming he can keep his grades near the C level he's at now. But on the bright side Chris a very sociable person who gets along well with others and makes friends easily. I think to do well in the real world you need to be smart, hardworking, and have good social skills, or at least be very good at one of those. Part of the reason why he may be doing badly is that he's a bit spoiled by Steph and I. We buy him too many things and protect him a bit from mom and dad, who at times were kind of harsh on us. I do hope he starts taking life more seriously, but people have to find their own way and make their own mistakes, so I try not to interfere with his life.